See the original posts for details. The theme of these seems to be dangerous impacts of climate change, bypassing of course the issue of attribution of these events. Maybe the big story is that a critical mass of bad weather events happened in the U.S., so we are experiencing in the U.S. another round of what we experienced post Katrina in terms of elevating concern about global warming. Based upon the Katrina experience: unless these events continue, the impact on public angst about global warming will dissipate in a few years or less.

Joe Romm’s choice for top story of the year is extreme weather from superstorms to drought emerges as political-scientific game changer. In principle this one might be the most important, but this is more of a prediction than anything else; it will be interesting to see what happens with U.S. energy/climate change politics in 2013.

In terms of the top stories in our little corner of the world of the climate blogosphere, the top stories in terms of # of hits at Climate Etc. were:

Gleick and Heartland

Lindzen seminar and op-ed

Observationally based attribution (Forest et al., Vaughan Pratt)

I haven’t seen any such lists from WUWT, etc?

So what has been genuinely important this past year? Here is my choice for the most important climate story of the year:

You would have to be blind not to see all four major global temperature metrics show warming over the last 16 years (1996 – 2012). Just look at the trend lines (OLS) in the linked chart, and you will see ……OK, forget that. Just have someone look at the chart for you and tell you about it.

Yes, as suspected, MAX_OK is a dreaming Pause Denier.
Wake up Maxie, even the most blinkered alarmists (Realclimate, Skeptical Science) now concede the Pause, but argue eg that even though the atmosphere has levelled off, the oceans are warming.

David Springer says there has been “no significant global warming” for 16 years straight. Max_OK “rebuts” this by posting a graph he claims shows temperatures of 2012. In reality, it ends in 2011. If one takes the last 16 years of data we instead get this graph. One could argue the difference is minor, but it is interesting to note Max_OK’s deceptive graph shows higher trends all around.

More importantly, Max_OK’s attempt to rebut David Springer’s position is nothing more than offering that graph. If we correct it, we find trends as low as 0.00350216 per year. Nobody in their right mind would consider that significant in any way, and it is certainly not statistically significant. And yet, Max_OK holds it is so.

Either Max_OK is being intentionally deceptive, or he is insulting people while having no idea what he’s actually doing.

Brandon says: “David Springer says there has been “no significant global warming” for 16 years straight. Max_OK “rebuts” this by posting a graph he claims shows temperatures of 2012. In reality, it ends in 2011.”

Max_OK replies: Yes, Brandon my graph ends at the end of 2011, but I’m afraid you have misinterpreted me. As you may recall, I said “all four major global temperature metrics show warming over the last 16 years (1996 – 2012).” Perhaps it wasn’t clear I was referring to the last 16 complete calendar years, from January 1996 up to but not including January 2012, but if you count the number of years in that period, I believe you will agree it adds to 16.

Brandon says; “If one takes the last 16 years of data we instead get this graph. One could argue the difference is minor, but it is interesting to note Max_OK’s deceptive graph shows higher trends all around.”

Max_OK replies: Brandon, my graph is deceptive if you fool yourself into believing it’s deceptive because you want it to be deceptive, but is that fair minded? Your graph should be correct if you start with the latest month’s data and work back to the number of months in 16 years. Yes, there’s not much difference in what our graphs show.

Brandon says: “More importantly, Max_OK’s attempt to rebut David Springer’s position is nothing more than offering that graph. If we correct it, we find trends as low as 0.00350216 per year. Nobody in their right mind would consider that significant in any way, and it is certainly not statistically significant. And yet, Max_OK holds it is so.”

Max_OK replies: Brandon, if you are looking for trends, I don’t see anything special about the last 16 years. Perhaps you think it’s a Goldie Locks period, not too short, not too long, not too distant, not too recent. But will you explain exactly why you chose it rather than some longer periods going back farther or some shorter but more recent period?

Brandon says: “Either Max_OK is being intentionally deceptive, or he is insulting people while having no idea what he’s actually doing.”

Max_OK I don’t have any trouble with what you have graphed. Brandon tends to get caught up with his interpretation of what has been said and is difficult to debate with. 15-16 years data is predictive dross in any case.

Brandon, my graph is deceptive if you fool yourself into believing it’s deceptive because you want it to be deceptive, but is that fair minded? Your graph should be correct if you start with the latest month’s data and work back to the number of months in 16 years. Yes, there’s not much difference in what our graphs show.

To make sure I understand you correctly, are you’re claiming it is not deceptive to ignore the last eleven months yet you are showing date from “over the last 16 years”? That’s what it sounds like, but I’d hope not. Your graph was certainly deceptive. I don’t think it was intentional, and I don’t think it made much of a difference, but it was deceptive.

Brandon, if you are looking for trends, I don’t see anything special about the last 16 years. Perhaps you think it’s a Goldie Locks period, not too short, not too long, not too distant, not too recent. But will you explain exactly why you chose it rather than some longer periods going back farther or some shorter but more recent period?

Huh? I didn’t pick 16 years. You guys were already talking about it I’ve repeatedly criticized the use of OLS over such short periods (especially cherry-picked ones like this). Heck, that’s why I spoke up! My main point was the “trends” you show are meaningless given the uncertainty in the data being used. I’d criticize you just the same if you had showed “cooling trends” this way.

To be clear, you choose to make a point based on 16 years of data. I pointed out the data was too noisy to support your point. You responded by… criticizing me for choosing to use your chosen data.

I’d have had no problem if he had said what he was graphing rather than saying something else.

Brandon tends to get caught up with his interpretation of what has been said and is difficult to debate with.

As often as I hear this, I almost never have anyone challenge my interpretations. I get criticized for them somewhat regularly, but I’m rarely told how they’re wrong. It’s weird.

15-16 years data is predictive dross in any case.

Which was my point. Max_OK claimed the data showed warming trends by relying on bogus lines. The “trends” he showed were nowhere near statistically significant. Despite that, he offered them as a rebuttal to David Springer saying there has been “no significant global warming” for 16 years straight.

In other words, you’re agreeing with me. Max_OK was wrong. He offered a graph he claimed rebutted a point when in reality that graph only did so if we completely ignore uncertainties.

I find it mildly amusing you posted supporting Max_OK and criticizing me yet you agree with my main point that criticizes Max_OK.

This reminds of this fall as we approached the record in ice melt in the arctic and skeptics ( like goddard and some at WUWT ) started to focus on IMS charts.. until IMS charts showed the record.

The evidence for a pause is pretty shakey. That’s not to say “There is no evidence for a pause” There is evidence For a pause, there is also evidence Against no pause. To conclude, dogmatically, that there IS a pause requires one to avoid certain data. To hide the incline as it were. Finally, people need to stop fitting straight lines to data and talking about “finding” the trend. Jeez, where are the real skeptics.

I imagine for the same reason people of all groups do: confirmation bias and/or self-deception.

The evidence for a pause is pretty shakey. That’s not to say “There is no evidence for a pause” There is evidence For a pause, there is also evidence Against no pause. To conclude, dogmatically, that there IS a pause requires one to avoid certain data. To hide the incline as it were.

This is partially a matter of semantics. There is definitely no conclusive evidence for a literal pause in warming. However, many people use “pause” to mean a pause in apparent warming. As in, “For whatever reason, we’re not seeing an increase in temperatures right now.”

The reverse of this is true as well. How many times have we heard about warming over the last X years? Those statements aren’t meaningfully different when it comes to examining what there is evidence for.

Finally, people need to stop fitting straight lines to data and talking about “finding” the trend. Jeez, where are the real skeptics.

Surely when the ‘pause’ is debated it is in the context of how far can you go back in order to witness the pause? I have never heard anyone argue a start date of 1996-as per your graph. Surely it is that temperatures havent warmed since 1998 or thereabouts?
tonyb

I merely took Brandons chart that goes back 16 years and substituted had4 for had 3.

perhaps he was fooling himself. many people have criticized had3 over the years, me included. had4 is a definite improvement on had3. So, why would anyone use had3? especially when they have previously criticized it?

had3 was righly criticized for

A) homegrown “adjustments” remember all those FOIAs. recall that we were trying to get to the bottom of had3 “value added” adjustments?

B) thin coverage in the arctic.

Well, had4 addressed both of those. Folks might not like had4 for other reasons, but if thats the case, then one should show had4 and had3. Not showing had4, when there is an argument that it is beter than had3 is just fooling oneself. Or holding inconsistent ideas: yesterday criticizing had3 for one set of reasons, and using it today because you like the answer. If folks want to un decieve themselves they would

1. show all the data.
2. stop pretending that linear fits express the trend.
3. stop pretending that 95% confidence is actually decisive.

The last comment may shock some people. But I’d prefer that people report the observed confidence ( 86%, 96% 58% whatever ) than to say silly things like “statistically significant”. There is not such thing, except in the “tradition”

Woah, wait. Did I read that right? When Mosher referred to “fake skeptics” earlier, he was calling me one? I thought it was just a general question. I hope that’s the case and I’m just reading this wrong:

I merely took Brandons chart that goes back 16 years and substituted had4 for had 3.

perhaps he was fooling himself. many people have criticized had3 over the years, me included. had4 is a definite improvement on had3. So, why would anyone use had3? especially when they have previously criticized it?

Because if I’m not, Mosher is a loon. How could I possibly be faulted for using CRUv3 instead of CRUv4? How could I have possibly been fooling myself? I wasn’t the one who chose the series! Max_OK chose it, not me. All I did was modify Max_OK’s graph so it showed what he said it showed.

Please tell me Mosher isn’t suggesting I fooled myself by having someone else make a decision before I even posted. What, did I use mind control to make Max_OK make a bad graph? Is Max_OK an alt of mine? I’m at a loss as to how this could possibly make sense.

I spent many years in business management, in which we operated a multimillion dollar global enterprise and its subsidiaries using nothing but raw graphs of various production and income data.

Never ever drew a trend line.

The data was there to be seen — anyone with eyes could see what it was doing.

Anyone who can’t just see that the data on Global Surface Temperatures have flattened out since about 1998 — that they are not going up up up like they had been from 1972 or so to 1998 — is (eGads, I hate to say it) just fooling themselves.

If one must draw lines to be able to see the data (in which case one needs an optometrist) you could try this one :

brandon, are you a fake skeptic?
i dunno. perhaps you fooled yourself. perhaps not.
one cannot be certain.
Can I hold you responsible for using had3? even if you “just” copied somebody else’s chart? i dunno. people copy manns charts all the time to make points. Do you object when they do?
if you have ever critcized had3 in the past ( i dunno have you ) wouldn’t it occur to you to be careful when making charts that use it? i dunno, I try to be careful when using data I have critcized in the past.

More importantly, I did the comparison to show the difference between had3 and had4, and to point out that any discussion of the “pause” that leaves out data selection is just hokum. whether you originated the chart, or copied the chart, or whatever.

because its not clear what you think about data selection in the chart you linked to, i wrote ‘perhaps.” That is called giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Okay Mosher, this is ridiculous. You referred to me me updating Max_OK’s graph as such:

Can I hold you responsible for using had3? even if you “just” copied somebody else’s chart? i dunno. people copy manns charts all the time to make points. Do you object when they do? if you have ever critcized had3 in the past ( i dunno have you ) wouldn’t it occur to you to be careful when making charts that use it? i dunno, I try to be careful when using data I have critcized in the past.

As it happens, I have criticized both version (though v4 seems better). That’s completely irrelevant. When “people copy manns charts… to make points” they do so to promote his charts. When I updated Max_OK’s graph, I explicitly called it deceptive. I called it deceptive because it didn’t show what he claimed it showed. I called it deceptive because it pretends like uncertainties don’t exist.

You’re criticizing me because… I didn’t also call Max_OK’s graph deceptive for not showing data that would have made the graph even more deceptive. It makes no sense.

More importantly, I did the comparison to show the difference between had3 and had4, and to point out that any discussion of the “pause” that leaves out data selection is just hokum. whether you originated the chart, or copied the chart, or whatever.

You didn’t say a word about the person who actually chose to leave out the data you highlighted. Max_OK made a decision you criticize yet the only person you say a word about is me. I condemned the graph while he promoted it, but you criticize me not him.

because its not clear what you think about data selection in the chart you linked to, i wrote ‘perhaps.” That is called giving you the benefit of the doubt.

So “because its not clear what [I] think” about something, you criticize me for it, make multiple comments suggesting I’m a fake skeptic/fooling myself, never criticize the originator of the graph, and it’s all okay because you said “perhaps.” Puh-leez.

You know far too much about linguistics to not know what you’re doing. On some level, you have to know your posts are painting me as a person deserving ridicule. You might have a leg to stand on if you had criticized Max_OK along with me, but the fact you single me out makes it clear you aren’t behaving fairly.

Brandon says: “To make sure I understand you correctly, are you’re claiming it is not deceptive to ignore the last eleven months yet you are showing date from “over the last 16 years”? That’s what it sounds like, but I’d hope not. Your graph was certainly deceptive. I don’t think it was intentional, and I don’t think it made much of a difference, but it was deceptive.”
___________

As you will recall, Brandon, what I said was “all four major global temperature metrics show warming over the last 16 years (1996 – 2012).” I can understand how you and other readers, could interpreted this to mean a period including all of 1996 and most of 2012. However, that interpretation would put the period at almost 17 years, not 16 years, and therefore would be an incorrect interpretation.

In retrospect, I could have avoided misinterpretation by saying all four major global temperature metrics show warming over the last 16 complete calendar years, from January 1996 up to January 2012.

16 years is a particularly poor choice of interval because it is one and a half solar cycles. It is easy to fool yourself with trends over this interval because the solar cycle is not small on this time scale.

My take on the most important subject, is possibly the most recent. This is what the IPCC is going to do with the AR5 report. The leak of the SOD makes it clear that the IPCC has a major problem. The previous 4 reports have expressed extreme confidence that CAGW is real, and “the science is settled”. Since the writing of the AR4 we have a lot of new evidence which gives a strong indication that the IPCC’s previous confidence was severely misplaced. There are a number of issues, and scientists have been going over the SOD, and analysing these.

What remains to be seen is what the IPCC is actually going to do about it. It seems to me that there are basicly two choices; both of which are bad. The IPCC can either agree that it’s past reports exaggerated the certainty with which the science purportedly supports the hypothesis of CAGW. Or the IPCC can ignore the science that has been found in the last 5 years or so, and which shows that the previous confidence was wrong. The latter option would mean that the AR5 would be internally consistent, but would be inconsistent with current scientifc knowledge.

I’d have to agree with Peter Lang that it is “extremely unlikely” that IPCC will waver from its “CAGW” message, no matter what the latest science shows.

The dilemma for IPCC, however, is that “the cat is out of the bag”.

As Judith stated earlier, it will be difficult for IPCC to brush the new data “under the rug” and retain any semblance of credibility.

But it would be even more painful to admit that past reports exaggerated certainty when it came to the impacts of AGW – and, worse yet, that they also exaggerated the magnitude these impacts.

The most damaging news for IPCC were the two recent studies based on physical observations (Lewis and Schlesinger), which indicate that (2xCO2) equilibrium climate sensitivity (the alpha and omega of the “CAGW” premise) is very likely to be around half of the values previously predicted by the climate models.

My guess is that IPCC (in keeping with its past tradition) will try to “tough it out” as long as this is possible, maybe with some quick rebuttals to the damaging reports, but that this policy will eventually backfire, as it loses all the credibility it still had left after Climategate, etc.

However, I expect that the days for IPCC’s “CAGW” position are numbered scientifically, even though the politically-driven multi-billion dollar big business that “CAGW” has become may continue to lumber on a bit longer before it finally collapses under its own weight.

IPCC is a political organization whose job from the “get go” was to show that human influences on our climate (from the use of fossil fuels) are likely to be harmful unless we dramatically curtail our use of fossil fuels through international action.

To support this political agenda, it needed a “consensus” process based on agenda-driven “science”.

And, yes, it has been doing exactly this all along.

Problem now is that the holes in the consensus science are beginning to become apparent to one and all.

“IPCC is a political organization whose job from the “get go” was to show that human influences on our climate (from the use of fossil fuels) are likely to be harmful unless we dramatically curtail our use of fossil fuels…” -max

Stop verballing the witness.

The IPCC was set up to review and make recommedations on the state of the science on climate change, look at impacts and make recommendations on possible responses.

“The IPCC was set up to review and make recommedations on the state of the science on climate change, look at impacts and make recommendations on possible responses.”

Simply laughable. It is a political organisation, politically funded, charged with advancing the cause of poltiicisation of society. It’s agenda is totalitarian through and through.

To this end its leading lights hide data, sabotage the science process, and generally lie and cheat – as evidenced by the Climategate revelations. Even more revealing is the utter lack of any repentance over this trend, as evidenced by the official attempts by the universities behind Climategate to whitewash the affair by means of fake Inquiries, and the dogged refusal of many other climate scientists to distance themselves from the impropriety endemic in much of the climate science profession.

Well of course Michael knows the brief of the IPCC is to promote more politics. It’s a very logical ploy for those like him who share the IPCC’s statist agenda, to pretend in public that the IPCC isn’t crooked, and that the bias it aims for in its reports are objective.

Our Michael is nothing if not consistent. Noting with approval the totalitarian/statist leaning of the IPCC (part of the would-be world government, let us not forget), he feigns to suggest no such bias exists. He’s not even trying to fool himself, of course, it’s others he wants to fool.

Oh I get it – Michael wants to imagine away the notion of soft totalitarianism (socialism, high taxes & regulation) by pretending the only type possible is the hard type (communism, mass murder, gulags, etc).

“The IPCC was set up to review and make recommedations on the state of the science on climate change, look at impacts and make recommendations on possible responses.”

Simply laughable. It is a political organisation, politically funded, charged with advancing the cause of poltiicisation of society. It’s agenda is totalitarian through and through.”

wiki:
“For Nazism, all history is the history of race struggle; and, for Marxism, all history is the history of class struggle. Once that premise is accepted, all actions of the state can be justified by appeal to Nature or the Law of History, justifying their establishment of authoritarian state apparatus”
….
The political scientists Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski were primarily responsible for expanding the usage of the term in university social science and professional research, reformulating it as a paradigm for the Soviet Union as well as fascist regimes. For Friedrich and Brzezinski, the defining elements were intended to be taken as a mutually supportive organic entity composed of the following: an elaborating guiding ideology; a single mass party, typically led by a dictator; a system of terror; a monopoly of the means of communication and physical force; and central direction, and control of the economy through state planning. Such regimes had initial origins in the chaos that followed in the wake of World War I, at which point the sophistication of modern weapons and communications enabled totalitarian movements to consolidate power. Another example of totalitarianism is the book 1984 by George Orwell.”

Though some global warming believer had mentioned the desire to execute people who disagree with the party line. One can say that the IPCC has never employed physical force, as far as I am aware of.
Though one could say the IPCC is dependent upon individual states to use any physical force at their discretion. And the UN certainly has member states which officially in good standing who certainly routinely brutalize their citizens. Therefore the excuse that IPCC doesn’t directly deploy physical force can seen as somewhat irrelevant as it’s member states can be their proxy.
Per Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski does the IPCC have it’s own
“guiding ideology” or would one suppose it mainly a matter of having so many Lefts it’s just the “class struggle” with it’s many convoluted ideas?

“During a 1945 lecture series entitled The Soviet Impact on the Western World (published as a book in 1946), the pro-Soviet British historian E. H. Carr claimed that “The trend away from individualism and towards totalitarianism is everywhere unmistakable”, and that Marxism-Leninism was much the most successful type of totalitarianism, as proved by Soviet industrial growth and the Red Army’s role in defeating Germany. Only the “blind and incurable” could ignore the trend towards totalitarianism, said Carr.”

Are we moving away from totalitarianism, staying about the same, continuing to slide in this direction. It seems one easily point to regime which are clearly totalitarian. Cuba and N Korea are very obvious, and as obvious somewhat unimportant hell holes. More significant are countries like Iran and Venezuela. And a country like China with it’s internet censoring and jailing of anyone with political opinion the ruling body don’t appreciate [to name the more well know examples of it’s thuggery.
But probably worse is lack of countries which are anti-totalitarianism, or those willing to champions individualism and human rights. And there is an extraordinary amount tolerance and indulgent attitudes – particularly by the “courageous media”- for worst governments on this planet

Chaps,
It really isn’t complicated – totalitarianism just means total government. Obviously understood to be a relative term – even in the most totalitarian/socialist states like the USSR and Nazi Germany, people could still make some decisions about their lives themselves.

Calling it “complicated” is just a way of trying to brush the issue under the carpet.

The more you try and dismiss commonsense, Michael, the clearer it becomes how dishonest you are.
But, in the unlikely event that you’re just ignorant, try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
Or ask a 10-year-old.

Your enemy seems to be the English language. “Totalitarianism” is the tendency for total control. The attempt may be more or less successful. Ask any 10-year-old if you’re struggling. Only those trying to hide this simple reality feign confusion over this.

Actually what Michael seems to have difficulty with, is seeing that there is nowhere a perfectly free society, nor anywhere a perfectly totalitarian one. He’s tripping over the “total” in the word, taking it literally as small child might .
Or, more likely, grasping at it as a straw to try and bury the whole idea.

So in an attempt to support his patently fabricated misinterpretation / difficulty with “totalitarian”, Michael now makes an even bigger pig’s ear of “skeptic”.
Pretty typical of the political advocacy and deviousness inherent in most climate alarmism I guess.

This started off with a discussion about what IPCC would now do in light of new scientific evidence that the (2xCO2) “equilibrium climate sensitivity” is very likely only around one-half the range previously predicted by climate models.

Judith Curry had written earlier that IPCC would not be able to sweep the new evidence “under the rug” without losing credibility.

Max_OK thought IPCC would “annoy and agitate people”.

I felt they would “tough it out”, rather than back down on the “CAGW” consensus premise, since their brief has always been to find a human cause based on fossil fuels for harmful climate change in order to support a political agenda.

Tomcat essentially agreed, stating, “the brief of the IPCC is to promote more politics”

Greybeard agreed with the statement, “It [IPCC] is a political organisation, politically funded, charged with advancing the cause of poltiicisation of society. It’s agenda is totalitarian through and through.”

Michael objected to the word “totalitarian”

The discussion then drifted into what “totalitarian” really means, etc.

Michael expressed the viewpoint that “totalitarian” is (by definition) “total”, while others felt their are degrees of “totalitarianism” from excessive control by stifling bureaucratic regulation to the all-out totalitarian state, such as we saw in the USSR or old East Bloc nations (or Nazi Germany, for that matter).

None of the posters (including myself) have ever had the misfortune to live in one of these truly “totalitarian” states, so it is hard to really discuss the true meaning of totalitarianism if you haven’t experienced it directly.

In a democratic society, is an increasingly powerful central government with a growing bureaucratic apparatus which regulates and controls more and more of all human, commercial and industrial activity a sign that the government is drifting toward “totalitarianism” or not?

Michael and Max_OK might disagree, but others here might find this a very logical conclusion.

At any rate, unlike the unfortunate people who live in truly “totalitarian” states, we are fortunate enough to eventually be able to do something about this if we live in a (more-or-less) democratic society.

Judith, I wish you a happy new year.
Next year, we may see some talk about correlation between geological activities and climate change. Ocean floor is presently warming at about the same rate of surface warming. What causes this abyssal warming? Is there a correlation between geological activities and abyssal warming?

Max_CH, you continue to fool yourself, I used to think your self-deception was just dumb, but after reading up on the subject, I see you are trying to gain an advantage.

Prominent biologist Robert Trivers puts it this way:

“I realized that if self-deception made it easier to deceive others, then it could confer an advantage. After all, deception only succeeds when undetected. Otherwise it may have most unfortunate consequences. So I imagined that self-deception easily evolved in the service of deceit—all kinds of improbably organized information to the conscious mind in order the better to fool others.”

Robert Trivers hasn’t even shown self-deception is an innate trait to humans yet he claims it is based in some hereditary condition created by evolution. His entire theory is based upon a massive assumption he has absolutely no evidence for.

Brandon, JC’s previous topic was about fooling one’s self, or self-deception. Some poster’s confessed to doing it. I think JC believes self-deception isn’t a good thing. But to stop fooling yourself, you must first admit you do it. Being honest with yourself might be hard for you, but could be worth the struggle.

Brandon, JC’s previous topic was about fooling one’s self, or self-deception. Some poster’s confessed to doing it. I think JC believes self-deception isn’t a good thing. But to stop fooling yourself, you must first admit you do it. Being honest with yourself might be hard for you, but could be worth the struggle.

Interestingly, this is a subject I am well-acquainted with. I started looking into it when I was a little kid. You see, I am not capable of self-deception. That created a lot of problems for me as this world relies upon self-deception to keep going. I experienced a great deal of grief, pain and confusion because I didn’t get that.

For example, I kept believing Santa was real long after I knew the idea of him didn’t make sense because I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of everyone in the world lying to me. I was shocked to find out all the people who told my lying was bad had spent my entire life lying to me (and this isn’t the only instance). That didn’t make sense to me then, and it still makes no sense to me now.

I cannot hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. I cannot fathom how anyone could. It makes no sense. To me, it seems to be a sign of insanity.

By the way, my above comment may come across as arrogant to some people. I don’t mean it to. I’ve just spent years trying to understand this subject, and everything I’ve seen indicates I’m just different. However, I want to stress something: I do keep an open mind. I accept the possibility I am just so good at fooling myself I haven’t noticed. As such, I’ll happily engage in any effort to test my beliefs about myself.

Incidentally, I think a lack of self-deception is a good thing in the sense that it is rational, but I think it is a terrible thing overall. Not being able to lie to yourself makes life so much more difficult. For example, imagine being an eight year and hearing these two sentences: “All humans are equally important.” “I feel terrible about the guy down the street who died in a car crash today.”

The implied morality of those statements is highly disturbing. It basically says we don’t care about the person down the street because he’s a person; we care because he’s close to us. His death isn’t tragic because it is a death; it’s tragic because he’s close enough to remind us of our own mortality.

Or for a more humorous example, think about how often people complain about politicians in the United States. If people held their elected officials accountable, politicians would change overnight. That means people are blaming politicians for what it ultimately their own fault.

Brandon Shollenberger’s posts on December 31, 2012 at 12:13 pm, and at 12:22 pm

Brandon, like you, I’m not comfortable with the notion of self-deception, but I have to admit it’s possible I am unintentionally fooling myself about some things in my life. The problem is I don’t know exactly what things I’m fooling myself about, and which ones hurt me and/or others (some self-deceptions may actually serve me and/or others ). I guess I could take a hard look at some of my assumptions to see whether any are shaky or just wrong. That might be a good idea, but I’m not certain it is, and it sure would require a lot of effort.

Max_OK, there’s a somewhat viable alternative you could try. Look at ways other people deceive themselves and check to see if you do the same. That lets you gain confidence in your conclusions directly in proportion to the amount of effort you put in. It can’t catch everything, of course, but it has some value.

Personally, I decided to doubt everything the moment I found out the truth about Christopher Columbus. Growing up, I was always taught Columbus was a hero for setting out to prove the world was round in the face of great mockery. I was something like 16 when I happened to stumble across the truth, that everyone had already known the world was round (for over a thousand years) and Columbus was mocked because he made a lot of stupid errors that should have got him and his crews killed. The only “heroic” thing about him was his crazy luck that let him run into a continent he had no reason to expect was there.

There was only so much insanity I could be exposed to before deciding to stop believing anything. Now I sometimes find myself wondering if I can even believe that I exist in any logical manner.

I should make clear that the lack of warming that I am referring to is not the 16 year lack of statistically significant warming in HadCRU debated at length above. I am referring to UAH which unlike HadCRU actualy measures atmospheric heat content. There the only warming in the last 34 years occurs in a single step, coincident with the big ENSO cycle 1998-2000. Ironically this warming falls within the fabled 16 year period.

The 34 year period shows no evidence of GHG warming. That lack of GHG warming disconfirms AGW as far as I am concerned.

“The transition from mitigation to adaptation to extreme events is my top story. ”

+1.

The question is will people see the opportunity to shift the debate.
The extreme –but not unprecedented–events of the past year illustrated that fears about the long term impacts have distracted policy makers and planners from taking proper action to prepare communities for the weather of our parents and grand parents. We are unprepared for the weather of the past, much less the weather of the future. If we take the science of AGW on its face, we know this: We know the next 30 years of weather are already destined. That is, no amount of mitigation can change the dynamics that drive the short term weather. And we have a choice: spend time, money and political captial on trying to mitigate effects in 2100, or find ways to build more resilient and adaptive communities today. It looks short sighted to tackle the problems of the past and the immediate future, but 20 years of fighting over global mitigation policies is costing lives.

Steve, you say, ““The transition from mitigation to adaptation to extreme events is my top story. ”). You are as well read as anyone studying climate but I urge you to read Pielke Jr. again. This years weather was not unprecedented, as you point out no amount of mitigation could alter weather over the next 30 years. I also would suggest that no amount of mitigation would alter climate over the next 100 years – I think you are fooling yourself if you think otherwise. So the present is like the past and the past will be like the future. Science is not the problem, politics is. People feel the need to do something, no matter how unwarranted. I live on a barrier island in southern Jersey who through normal course of local mitigation planning built a robust sea wall and high dunes at the oceans edge. Guess what happened to the oceanfront homes after Sandy on our island – nothing. Guess what happened to other communities without planning – well, look at Seaside Heights. So I wish we drop the nonsense of global mitigation, or even adaptation- local works.

Predictions:Debt Crisis will increase.
Tea Party influence will increase.
“Controlling Climate” will remain politically illusive and irrelevant.
Rising fuel costs and shortages will “drive” the economy down
Until we “Mitigate” by Developing alternative Fuels
on a war time footing.

Except of course that a great deal of that American coal was burnt anyway because it was shipped overseas and used by others. In this way, and the general increase in fossil fuel use worldwide, 2012 will be a record year for the overall growth of GHG’s in the atmosphere.

There is no way nat gas can remain IN-expensive. The question is, when will it be TOO expensive? I wouldn’t get too excited about it getting too expensive very soon. Other countries around the world are warming to fracking. This bodes well for cheap nat gas.

US nat gas companies were counting on exports to raise the price of nat gas, using liquification technology. But if European countries start fracking, and some of them have a huge potential for nat gas production, that shoots that plan down. So, the only way for US companies to control prices would be to throttle back on production. That is a good thing and shale gas is readily adaptable to that plan since production rates fall faster than for more conventional wells. In the meantime, research continues on how to unlock even more nat gas from shale. As it stands, only a small fraction is recoverable – at the present time at least.

Regulatory forces have more to do with coal’s decline than market forces. Ten year’s ago we built 200,000 MW of new generating capacity, almost all gas fired even though gas was expensive. Coal was already under attack.

Here is the 1979 Annual Energy Outlook. The US Coal consumption that was projected to occur by 1985 didn’t occur until 2005. The US in 2010 was using 24 Quads less energy in 2010 then the 1979 projections.

If an electric utility executive is uncertain of future demand then said executive builds the least capital intensive generating capacity…which is gas.

As there is a distinct long term trend of southward migration in the US the only utilities that have some certainty as to future demand are in the South. Coal costs twice as much in the South East as the South West.

True enough Harry, but I was actively involved in the 2000 boom and a number of companies wanted to build coal plants. All were stopped by a combination of green protests (led by the Sierra Club and NRDC) and regulatory threats. Now of course we are planning on shutting down a lot of coal fired plants or switching them to gas because of the mercury rules. These are not market forces.

I’ll grant that the Sierra Club’s abuse of the legal system ends up raising the financial risk profile of coal fired plants as it does nuclear plants and hydro plants.

As far as the mercury rules…It’s hard to comment on the impact. 22% of US coal fired capacity has input heats rates greater then 12,000 BTu’s.
They are going to have a hard time competing against CCGT(heat rates of 7,000 BTU’s) no matter what. Especially when you start calculating in ash disposal etc etc etc..

The mercury impact is being tracked via announcements of plant closures and fuel switching, plus modeling. Some estimate that 40% of the coal fired plants, the old ones, will shut down or switch to gas. Every remaining plant will now finally have to scrub. Interestingly this may mean we can switch from PRB coal back to high grade eastern coal. But coal use will drop a lot so gas use has to rise accordingly. We burn a billion tons of coal a year. We need a lot of new gas pipelines which will be hard to build. This big switch from coal to gas could be a major boondoggle but CO2 emissions will indeed fall, even without CO2 regulation, just mercury regulation.

Too bad he didn’t live to see his this evidence of the direction of time at the subatomic level. it has great implications for many things and provides insight into that narrow “middle way” between the strict determinism and complete chaos which could be important for the future of science. Prigogine well understood the critical importance of instability.

In term of news related to climate for the year:

1) The new modern low in Arctic sea ice, beating out 2007, is huge, as it shows that 2007 was not a black swan but a dragon-king. The role of the Great Arctic Cyclone in this event is also of interest. Cause or feedback?
2) The nearly 100% summer surface melting of Greenland was also huge, as it shows another extreme event that may indicate the strength of a longer-term trend.

your 1) and 2) What I find interesting is that although the surface temperatures in Greenland were at their warmest of any two consecutive decades during the 1930’s and 40’s, the official sea ice record shows little ice melt and the global temperatures was unremarkable, so no arctic amplification.

Whereas from 2000 the global temperatures stagnated yet arctic amplification was so great there was apparetly unprecedented ice melt.

One must consider the thermal inertia of the cryosphere, as I pointed out many times. The past 10 years have been the warmest 10-year period on instrument record– far warmer than anything we saw in the 1930’s or 1940’s. Flattening at these higher levels is much different than a brief peak and then downward, and also, as pointed out, different than a continued rise. But the cryosphere, like the ocean, has a higher thermal inertia than the atmosphere, and so is a better gauge to long-term climate change. Greenland is not responding to just a summer or two, but a decade or more of the highest instrument temperatures on record along with higher ocean heat content in the ocean currents reaching Greenland.

But as a true skeptic, should the Arctic sea ice decline reverse direction (over a decade or more) and Greenland and Antarctica begin to show net ice mass gains (over a decade or more) and the NH late spring/early summer snow cover begin to show an increase (over a decade or more) and global ocean heat content begin to decline (over a decade or more) and NH permafrost begin to increase (over a decade or more), then I would be inclined to revise my current “warmist” position.

Current temperatures have become warmer than the extended mid century warm period only the last five years or so and by only half a degree. Certainly not ‘far warmer’. All against a backdrop of considerable modern arctic amplification set besides a static global temperature.Curious.

At the least the official ice records for the mid century period are wrong. by how much is an interesting question although I’m not claiming the ice melt reached that of the current year.
Tonyb

So Tony, are you trying to prove my point? The past decade was the warmest decade for Greenland in the modern instrument record:

“It seems little doubt that summer air temperatures for Greenland ice are the highest in at least 172 years. Summer temperatures in the late 2000s are roughly 0.5 C warmer than in the 1930s and even warmer than at any time since at least 1840s.”

Greenland is not responding to a year or two of record high atmospheric temperatures, but a decade or more. Furthermore, the heat is not just coming from the atmosphere, but from the ocean, and as the link you provided points out, we don’t know whether the AMO is going to respond to anthropogenic factors as a feedback, or be an independent natural variable.

My point was that we had three decades of warm temperatures in the mid century warm period, not just one. They included the two warmest consecutive decades on record not just one decade . The highest single year temperatures in the 40’s and the current decade were virtually identical. The temperatures are not ‘far warmer’ now. Yet the three decades long warming is supposed to have resulted in very limited melting.
Tonyb

The graph at the very link you provided clearly shows the past decade of Greenland temperatures spiking above anything else in the record since the 1840’s. There may have been a year here or there that came close in the the 1940’s, but the large decade long grouping of higher temperatures in the past decade is clearly evident and unique. Previous warm decades on instrument record have not come close to what the past decade has been like in Greenland.

There were three decades of much warmer than average -but still jolly cold-temperatures. Result: very limited ice melt according to the official records. There has been one decade of much warmer than average plus a fraction-but still jolly cold temperatures. Result: drastic ice melt.

It is reasonable to expect that the extended period of much warmer than average temperatures for three decades would have had a much greater impact on ice levels than the record shows, even if it is not as great as the last few years
Tonyb

You do realize that surface temperatures at the coldest part of Greenland were just tipping right above the freezing point during the few days of massive melt this summer, right? That half-degree or so can mean a lot when you are at a bifurcation point such as when ice turns to water…just sayin’.

Given that many people initially thought 2007 to be a “fluke” black swan event, and some very modest “recovery” in 2008 & 2009 seem to encourage this point of view (though sea ice volume continued to decline), when 2012’s low sea ice event occurred, it follows that 2007 was not a black swan at all, but rather a dragon-king event, the ushering in of a new Arctic sea ice regime of which 2012 confirms the new regime that the Arctic sea ice has entered.

Now it can be argued justifiably that the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 “caused” 2012’s ice extent to be so low by bringing up warmer water from depths and chewing up the ice so nicely, but this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg argument, for certainly, had we had the kinds of ice volume and thickness of say the 1970’s, if a Great Arctic Cyclone were to occur, it would not have had nearly the kind of effect on chewing up the ice. Furthermore, much study is of course being dedicated to seeing if the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 was worsened through some kind of positive feedback, by the already lower sea ice levels.

Finally, as a point of personal pride, I take at least some credit to naming the arctic storm we had this summer as the “Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012”. This naming occurred on Nevin’s blog back when the storm was just getting going. Here’s the actual point in time when I proposed this name:

And it was soon picked up in later posts on Neven’s blog and in various media sources and got carried through to other professional organizations as well. If someone can find an earlier reference to giving this storm the name as the “Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012” then mine at Neven’s site let me know. But it remains my very tiny claim to climate fame for 2012.

Given that many people initially thought 2007 to be a “fluke” black swan event, and some very modest “recovery” in 2008 & 2009 seem to encourage this point of view (though sea ice volume continued to decline), when 2012′s low sea ice event occurred, it follows that 2007 was not a black swan at all, but rather a dragon-king event, the ushering in of a new Arctic sea ice regime of which 2012 confirms the new regime that the Arctic sea ice has entered.

Black swans and dragon kings are technical terms used to denote events at the fringes of a [typically power-law] distribution (black swans), and those events lying outside the distribution (dragon kings).

“Dragon kings” mean a sign of something occurring outside the normal distribution, not just a rare outlier (black swan), but more like a tipping point, catastrophe, bifurcation, moving to a different distribution. Appropriate for sea-ice changes, it seems.

Look especially at the information and graphs on page 9. Despite the confusion of some, dragon-kings and black swans are far from being the same thing, and this paper was not just an attempt by Sornette to upstage Taleb. There is a real identifiable dynamic going on with dragon-kings and black swans. As Sornette says:

“Marked increases in excitatory
coupling drive the system towards the
synchronized regime tagged by the dragon-king. Slight
increases in coupling drive the system
towards the power law regime indicative of self-organized
criticality, with the representative black swan…”

This “excitatory coupling” was terminology used from an epilepsy study he was using, but can be used in any system with feedback processes. Thus, in the specific case of Arctic sea ice, we saw a series of lower and lower sea ice extent years in the early 2000’s, with oscillations up and down, but with the down being ever greater. This was the pre-shock, quasi-periodic behavior or “excitatory coupling” leading up to the big drop in 2007– the dragon-king event. It was however, only after the fact, now in 2012 that we could confirm that 2007 represented a regime change in the ice. 2012 is the new norm in a new regime, thus is really not a black swan or dragon king in respect to the new regime established in 2007. How long this regime will last is up for discussion. We may continue now for 3, 5, 10 or more years in this range until we see some marked increases in “excitatory coupling” indicating the final drop to a new regime of an ice free summer Arctic. One must not forget, that underlying this downward trend to lower and lower Arctic sea ice regimes is the constant climate forcing of ever increasing GHG’s.

Robert, thank you for the link to the Sornette article, which happened to be the main article I consulted to learn the definition of “black swan” and “dragon king”. If you re-read my description at 10:28pm, there’s no confusion between or conflation of the two terms.

(By the way, Sornette’s prediction in the paper of the crash date of the Shanghai Composite index was almost exactly on target..)

You wrote:

Look especially at the information and graphs on page 9. [..] As Sornette says:

“Marked increases in excitatory coupling drive the system towards the synchronized regime tagged by the dragon-king. Slight increases in coupling drive the system towards the power law regime indicative of self-organized criticality, with the representative black swan…”

This “excitatory coupling” was terminology used from an epilepsy study he was using, but can be used in any system with feedback processes.

I don’t see where such a general result is demonstrated – your quotation from Sornette (from pg. 9, referring to fig. 20) applies to “systems made of heterogeneous coupled threshold oscillators” (pg. 9). Can the historical Arctic sea-ice extent be modelled (well) by a system made of heterogeneous coupled threshold oscillators? (Prof. Curry?)

Thus, in the specific case of Arctic sea ice, we saw a series of lower and lower sea ice extent years in the early 2000′s, with oscillations up and down, but with the down being ever greater. This was the pre-shock, quasi-periodic behavior or “excitatory coupling” leading up to the big drop in 2007– the dragon-king event.

It was however, only after the fact, now in 2012 that we could confirm that 2007 represented a regime change in the ice.

In the examples in Sornette’s paper, there’s data covering previous ‘crashes’ / phase transitions / bifurcations. For the Arctic sea ice, we have less than 35 years of instrumental extent data, and no instances within that data of an ice-free Arctic. Was the recent pattern in ice extent variations (or some related index) also present in historical episodes leading to a ‘tipping point’ ushering in a new regime of an ice-free arctic? Perhaps. Do we have the data to demonstrate this?

Is the absolute certainty with which you declare that 2007 was a dragon king based on an analysis of the numbers (in which case, please share it), or are you just providing us with your (not implausible) opinion ?

The new modern low in Arctic sea ice, beating out 2007, is huge, as it shows that 2007 was not a black swan but a dragon-king.

You refer to Sornette 2009 and Paul Vaughan references a more recent paper by Sornette & Ouillon 2012. These discuss methods and statistical tests for the detection of dragon-kings and statistical tests, and empirical evidence for dragon kings in a variety of natural and social systems – but not the Arctic sea ice.

Are you aware of any analysis that backs up your assertion that the 2007 minimum in Arctic sea-ice extent was a dragon-king event? If so, will you share it with us?

Livina & Lenton’s methods are very stimulating and can be adapted for important applications, BUT Livina & Lenton cut the quantitative legs right out from under themselves with this exceedingly embarrassing 2012 misapplication.

This paper will make an excellent classroom teaching example for generations to come of what can go excruciatingly & almost unbelievably wrong when beautiful mathematical abstraction is applied to the real world without so much as an ounce of common sense consciousness of some of the very simplest & hardest aspects of reality. This is one of the worst author integrity scorchers I’ve ever seen.

Lesson for everyone who enjoys the ecstasy of dreamily swimming in abstract concepts: don’t allow the seductively hypnotic intoxication to relax & inhibit your common sense connection, faithfulness, & devotion to the most strongly rock solid aspects of reality. This one was a ‘wow, just wow – how did they goof so badly??’.

Thanks very much for the insights into the weakness of the Livina & Lenton work. I knew there had been criticisms but hadn’t followed it all that closely as. Your information will cause me to more closely examine solid research related to longer frequency natural variations of Arctic sea ice.

Even if the Livina & Lenton paper was free of flaws, the authors do caution that their chosen method for detecting bifurcations “assumes that a system is experiencing sufficient short-term stochastic variability (noise) that it is sampling all of its available states or attractors (given a sufficiently long time window). [..] with a sufficiently long time window of data one can deduce the number of system states and their relative stability or instability.”

The Skeptical Warmist :

2007 was not a black swan at all, but rather a dragon-king event, the ushering in of a new Arctic sea ice regime of which 2012 confirms the new regime that the Arctic sea ice has entered

TSW, you’re announcing the result of the prediction as an established fact. Why abandon basic scientific principles?

If they want to put this behind them and resiliently get back on their feet:

I have in mind some quite interesting (and far more careful) applications of their methods in other very important contexts. They’re welcome to contact me through Dr. Curry.

—
Gates, I believe the recent regime shift in the arctic is telling us something quite simple, but I need to connect a few more dots (Jean Dickey, Richard Gross, Ben Chao, Nikolay Sidorenkov) before saying much more …

While I appreciate your attempt to extricate CO2 as the cause of any warming, you ought to appreciate the fact that even though near surface tropospheric temperatures have flattened, they have not gone down, but remained flattened at the highest temperatures on instrument record. The past 10 years were the warmest on instrument record, and thus, just like a thermostat on your house, if it remains set at warmer temperature, without going up or down, ice will continue to melt if left out on your counter.

No. So no. R. Gates, that experiment isn’t remotely surprising. Heck, it isn’t even new. The same results were obtained by a group at CERN almost 15 years ago with kaons and anti-kaons. This fact is even acknowledged by the paper you cite! Independently replicating those results is good (especially since some people questioned their significance), but this is nothing new. In fact, the only way those results wouldn’t have been found is if (ordinary) quantum field theory didn’t hold.

Beyond that, those results have nothing to do with the arrow of time. Please look at the difference between T invariance and CPT invariance before promoting what is nothing more than a misleading press release statement.

“These nonzero results represent the first direct observation of T violation through the exchange of initial and final states in transitions that can only be connected by a T-symmetry transformation.”
_____
I believe the kaon, anti-kaon was an inferred result, and not a direct observation. I accept the BARBAR results of direct observation of T violation as far more significant of anything that has come before it and think Prigogine would have been thrilled at the finding as entropy and times-arrow were so important to his research. But I admit this is not an area I have deep knowledge of, so you might also be correct. This is, after all, our opinions about the big stories of the year and as such, there would be a high degree of subjectivity involved at any rate.

As written, that sentence is misleading. If you look in the paper itself to see what the basis for it is, you’ll see:

Attempts to measure TRV without reference to CP violation have been controversial. Experiments at CPLEAR (measuring the difference in rates between K0 transitions to K¯0 and K¯0 transitions to K0 [4]) and at Fermilab (observing an asymmetry seen in the decay KL0→π+π-e+e- [5]) claim to detect TRV directly, but some researchers have doubted this interpretation because of complicating factors in the K meson decays.

In other words, the authors say the previous results have been “doubted” by “some researchers,” thus the results don’t count. There is no citation given to support the existence of this supposed doubt, nor is there any meaningful explanation as to why the doubt exists.

I don’t hold much of an opinion as to whether or not those earlier results were statisticatlly significant or whatnot, but this paper does nothing to show they were not. As such, the quote I provided from the body is not justified. The abstract is even worse as it is flat-out misleading.

I believe the kaon, anti-kaon was an inferred result, and not a direct observation.

Why would you believe that when the paper you cited explicitly states otherwise?

This is, after all, our opinions about the big stories of the year and as such, there would be a high degree of subjectivity involved at any rate.

Given your viewpoint seems to rest on you believing the exact opposite of what this paper says, I’m not sure subjectivity is important here.

(By the way, the fact that paper has no bearing on the “arrow of time” seems far more relevant to me than whether or not it is “new.” Unfortunately, I mangled my last paragraph while editing my comment. For simplicity, I’ll just recommend this article.)

Thanks for the lengthy explanation and the link. All were very informative and helped to clarify the issues for me. Equally useful were the comments after the article. I assume you read them. Taking all this new information into account, I remain of the opinion that the BARBAR results were among the top 10 important science stories of the year and Prigogine would have been very interested in them, but he could have been equally as interested in the fact that Jessica Simpson was pregnant again for all I know.

R. Gates, I’m glad to have been of help, but I find it awkward you haven’t corrected anything you said. It makes it hard for me to tell if we’re in agreement now or not. I don’t care how significant people consider that paper, but I hope we agree it has nothing to do with the “arrow of time.”

No the surface melt of Greenland was a natural cyclical event. The survey team expected it to occur, as it has roughly every 150 years over a long stretch of centuries. The previous melt occurred 1889.

1. Another year (#15?) of no warming despite unabated human GHG emission
2. Doha disaster for those hoping for a binding mitigation resolution
3. Lots of bad weather, especially in USA – alarmists try to deflect attention from 1 and 2 by “blaming” it on AGW
4. This doesn’t seem to work
5. AR5 draft is leaked: more of same (i.e. nothing new)
6. Two studies (Lewis, Schlesinger) conclude that (2xCO2) climate sensitivity is around half of previously assumed value – no reaction yet from AR5 authors (but this could be the “bombshell” that disarms CAGW)

The biggest bad climate change story for me is that the incompetent, ‘Progressive’ Labor-Green alliance Australian Government implemented a carbon tax and ETS. Worse still, they’ve tied it in the the European ETS. So we’ve handed over some control of our economy to Europe’s bureaucrats – people who have not the slightest interest in how the Australian economy performs.

The Australian carbon tax and ETS will cost $10 for every $1 of projected benefits. But, as we all know, the benefits will not be realised unless the whole world joins in our (Australian) ETS, and no one cheats.

Thank you for this. WordPress told me to do this too, but they couldn’t tell me what would be the consequences of doing so. So I didn’t risk it. I don’t want to lose history or stored passwords, for example. I don’t know what other issues deleting cookies could cause.

“Trenbreth, too, has criticised the IPCC process suggesting that it may have outlived its usefulness…’There are too many scientists involved [in the IPCC] who are not leading researchers–owing to the demands for new people and national, geographic, and gender diversity…The IPCC process is not the way to improve and develop models'”

So why hasn’t there been attention paid to Trenbreth’s above, scathing, “bombshell” critique of the IPCC?–again, the answer to that question is the “big story” in climate science this year if anyone would care to venture the answer.

Speak up! Lot’s riding on the IPCC’s supposed, unimpeachable authority in climate science review matters. Kevin Trenbreth, no less, courageously calls all that into question. And if the folks “in the know” won’t speak up in this matter–WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??!! WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??!!

Mike, wants to know “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??,” presumably referring to those who comment here at Climate, Etc.

Mike, that’s an interesting question, but I don’t think you will get many answers. The question implies people who post here are defective, and you want them to describe their defects and explain why they have these flaws. I predict people will be reluctant to share this information with you unless you go first.

So to get the ball rolling, you might ask yourself what’s wrong with you, and then tell everyone here about all your defects. The more bad things about yourself you can own up to, the better. No one is going to feel like being honest about what’s wrong with him or her, if all you can offer about yourself is you once failed to return a library book on time.

Mike also demands to know “WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??!!”

Mike many people who post here are pretty old. They are afraid of failing health. They are afraid of death. They may fear losing a spouse. They may fear outliving their money. They may fear no one cares about them anymore. Give the old-timers a break.

I wasn’t referring to anyone who comments at this blog, as you imagine, except, that is, those who might be “in the know” about Kevin Trenbreth’s expressed dissatisfaction with the IPCC–pro or con. You know, Max_OK, guys “in-the-know” about the IPCC, like you. I mean, like, up-thread there we find you shooting your mouth off like you’re the duty-expert on the IPCC and all. So just what do you make of Trenbreth’s opinion of the IPCC, quoted in my above comment, Max_OK?

Actually, Max_OK, I was kinda expecting something more along the lines of someone anonymously poppin’ up and saying that while they agree with Trenbreth that the IPCC “sucks” given all the “not leading researcher” parvenu-parasites taken aboard recently for “diversity” reasons, no one wants to say anything about it because they fear if they do a gal-pal, flash-mob of gravy-train goons will descend on them and make their life a living hell for ever after. You know, that kinda thing, Max_OK.

But I respect that you’re trying your “crusher” best, Max_OK, to deflect attention from Kevin Trenbreth’s very interesting–may we call it “radioactive”–critique of the IPCC. At the same time, I’m a little surprised that the hive has chosen to employ you, Max_OK, the biggest doofus lumpen-flunky they’ve got on something this momentous. But maybe it’s because you’re also the most expendable and doltish member of “the team”, which favors handing a clueless dummkopf like you, Max_OK, the Trenbreth “hot potato” that, apparently, none of your more prudent, hive-bozo pals dare touch with even a ten-foot hockey-stick.

Regardless, until someone with IPCC “chops” comparable to those of Kevin Trenbreth comes along and trashes Kevin’s critique of that boondoggle, rip-off organization, then we can safely write off the IPCC and its various “right-answer!”, lefty-hack, toady sell-out, agit-prop flim-flam wares–right, Max_OK? But hey!, Max_OK, keep your hopes up–I mean, like, with any luck this whole unfortunate business will just turn-out to be nothing more than a simple, big, fat mis-communication, characterized by regrettable mis-quotes, fog-of-war misunderstandings, negligent quotes-out-of-context, and other razzle-dazzle, damage-control, good stuff like that.

Mike, you didn’t provide a link, and my time is too valuable to be googled away searching for a report you probably misinterpreted anyway. Despite having many more important tasks to complete before 2012 ends, just to satisfy you I have taken the time to look for what Trenberth recently said about the IPCC. Here’s some of what I found in the October 12 Sydney Morning Herald:
“AS THE world’s elite global warming experts begin poring over the drafts of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report this week, one leading scientist doesn’t believe the process should be happening at all.”

But Professor Trenberth believes too many researchers and too much ”second tier” science are diluting the report’s quality, and that science has jumped far ahead of the lumbering process. ”There are more people, it’s more diffuse, it’s harder to gain a consensus – quite frankly I find the whole process very depressing,” he said. ”The science is solid, but with a larger group it’s harder to reach a consensus, and updates every six years are just too slow. After the fifth assessment, we should push on with a different format.”

Mike, it’s obvious to me Trenberth doesn’t like an IPCC process that allows input from every Tom, Dick, and Harry who thinks he knows something about climate science, because it waters down the quality and strength of the IPCC reports. I don’t know about you, Mike, but I wouldn’t add tap water to a fine Scotch Whiskey. The process would be even worse with the open review and input some contrarians have advocated. That would be like adding raw sewage to a fine Scotch whiskey.

Oh, I forgot to add that Trenbeth also said:

”I think it will be less successful than the last assessment, and I think it will be blander – I’m disappointed in what I’ve seen so far,”

I think this means Trenbeth wants an IPCC report that has some balls, a report that will kick denier butt, but I may be wrong, so to know exactly what Trenbeth means, you would have to ask him.

Mike, I hope you and your family have a fun and safe New Year’s Eve, and I wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Max_OK wrote: “I think this means Trenbeth wants an IPCC report that has some balls, a report that will kick denier butt”
———————————————————————————-
The fact that they haven’t yet managed to achieve that (and it doesn’t look like they ever will), despite their vast resources and political backing, speaks volumes.
Happy new year, anyway

My #1 For 2012 is the collapse of the cause.
Now the likes of Romm are reduced to braying ,that acts of man cause weather. The scam is dead.
This is the first scam in human folklore, even those disengaged from policy and politics understand that .
The original charlatan , promises to make the thunder go, by chanting and singing. For a fee of course.Thunder came cause you bad.
Next the IPCC will be claiming success through prayer. No need for co2 reductions, just send money.

There is no question that since around Climategate it appears that the wheels are coming off of the CAGW bandwagon.

It is not yet in the ditch, to be sure, but things do not look very rosy for those promoting the CAGW premise (as IPCC outlined it in AR4).

Will it have a 2013 “comeback” with AR5?

I don’t know – you don’t know.

However, if 2013 continues the “lack of warming” trend seen for the past 10-15 years, it will look increasingly grim for the CAGW premise.

And if the “lack of warming” continues for another 10 years, I would expect CAGW to be a dead duck, at least scientifically speaking – no matter what rationalizations are pulled out of the hat to try to explain it away.

People are hard to fool for a long time period.

CAGW has become a multi-billion dollar big business, with lots of folks cashing in and others hoping to do so in a big way if there ever is a direct or indirect carbon tax. These guys are not going to give up easily, so look for some major resistance.

Not being a CAGW’er myself, I really don’t follow whether the “wheels are coming off” this particular bus. However, being a warmist, and thinking that overall we’ll likely see higher temperatures as the century ahead progresses rather than lower, I try not to focus to much on timeframes shorter than a decade for climate. For timeframes shorter than a decade, this is great for longer-term weather forecasting. In this regard, I will make a specific prediction for the year ahead related to ENSO. We’ll likely see a brief La Nina develop in early to mid 2013, or at least close to La Nina conditions, followed by a strong El Nino for the winter of 2013-2014. I base this El Nino prediction mostly on QBO behavior in the stratosphere around 25 to 45km above the equator. Easterly anomalies have been working their way down via the QBO and are even now beginning to set up the La Nina. This brief La Nina episode will be reversed and followed up in late 2013 into 2014 by the rather persistent westerly wind anomalies at 25-45 km that have begun to lower and will likely bring on the next rather strong El Nino at that time.

Absolutely no to any taxes being used to try an forestall any supposed catastrophe. Should we have taxed CFC’s to prevent damage to the ozone layer? This would have been absurd and is equally absurd for CO2– even more so. If the ongoing CO2, methane, and N2O buildup truly presents a existential threat to humanity, something more effective than raising taxes will have to used to handle it. If it is an existential threat, then I suspect, unfortunately, that wars will be fought over the issue as carbon is such an important part of the global economy.

Like others, I’m sure, I’m delighted by your claim, Gates, that you’re not a “CAGW’er”–though I treat your little declaration with just a teensy bit of caution (sorry, I suffer from “precautionary principle disorder”) and would ask, if your would be so kind, for a little more detail and specificity.

Frankly, I hope you “run” the list because CAGW, worry-wart claims like “cannibalism”, “maple syrup shortages”, and “suffocating narwals” keep me up at night and give me nightmares, even when I do briefly nod off.

And oh by the way, Gates, since you’re not a “CAGW’er”, just how do you justify our do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do betters’ imperious demands that us hoi-polloi embrace carbon austerity and carbon taxes and the appaling sums of taxpayer, rip-off dough that have been spent by all those tenured smarty-pants, in-on-the-deal, and crony-scamsters and pay-to-play politicos on boondoogle, renewables scams; electric car fisacos; a jillion, billion, zillion “climate change” studies with, like, really scary predictions of horrible, CAGW “mega-bummers” like, oh say, “shrimp sex dysfunctions” (see the list above); and all those incessant, freak-show, CO2-spew, blow-out enviro-confabs, which could easily be video-conferenced with vast savings in GHG emissions, where the party-line, carbon-phobic conclusions of the conference have already been decided pre-conference and where any mention of 16 years of no statistical warming will get you banned from the conference?

1) I don’t currently believe that AGW will lead to catastrophe.
2) If it turns out that AGW will lead to C AGW then taxes will not be the way to solve it.
3) If the world becomes convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that AGW will become C AGW, then, as was the case with the banning of CFC’s and the ozone layer, one would hope that nations would voluntarily do the right thing and a “blunt totalitarian approach” is not required, but if it is required, then future generations will thank us for doing whatever it took.

I suspect that you are somewhere in the depths of your progressive mind re-defining the C in CAGW to mean a species ending event.

“1) I don’t currently believe that AGW will lead to [the extinction of the human race].”

But that is not the question when it comes to CAGW. The question is, do you believe that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are sufficiently likely to cause an increase in catastrophic events (hurricanes, flooding, desertification etc.) to justify decarbonizing the global energy economy?

If your answer is no, then you should probably change your nom de blog to The Skeptical Lukewarmist.

If however, as I suspect, your answer is yes, then you should remain The Faux Skeptical Warmist.

There is of course an easy way to clarify your skepticism. Identify what policies you do or do not support.

“There is of course an easy way to clarify your skepticism. Identify what policies you do or do not support.

Decarbonization? Yes, but not forced by government but by marketplace forces. I happen to think that artificial photosynthesis is closer to becoming a viable commercial reality than most realize. This will be a disruptive technological change and companies like Panasonic have made great strides in 2012:

“I suspect that you are somewhere in the depths of your progressive mind re-defining the C in CAGW to mean a species ending event.”
____
That would be the most extreme of catastrophic events, but something that could cause a major breakdown of our current ability to feed, clothe, and house the 7+ Billion of us would also be catastrophic. Simply increasing severe weather events is, in my mind, not catastrophic, but simply a matter for adaptation, which humans are pretty good at and have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years.

For reasons that even I can understand, my comments have lately been shunted to a “hold” status for further review prior to posting (if they pass that further review, that is). So there’s usually some delay between the post of one of my comments and its creation. In that regard, an earlier comment of mine, if it ever shows up, is OBE given your December 31, 2012, 2:39 am comment, above.

Rather, let me say that if you, Gates, can come up with a faster, cheaper, smarter alternative to fossil-fuel energy and do it all entrepreneurially at your own expense and risk, then more “power” to you. And if you succeed, you’ll become a quadrillionaire, and I hope you enjoy every penny of your well-earned riches. Moi, I’ll be your most enthusiastic cheer-leader.

What a relief from the typical eco-leech angling for a tax-payer rip-off sinecure, Gates. More of the same, please–Bring it on!

What emerged though is that your position on what to do if C AGW is ever established beyond reasonable doubt, is very, er, ‘nuanced’, shall we say. Personally I don’t see an alternative to a blunt totalitarian approach (ie political bans, taxes, etc). Tragedy of the commons scenario, with no remedy available by means of privatization of the assets involved.

It seems to me that the biggest climate related story of the year hands down is the re-election of Obama.

The EPA will now be unchained. Cap and trade will rise from the grave like a zombie from The Walking Dead television series. The president will use the coming (ongoing?) economic crisis as cover for more radical attacks on coal, oil and gas than have yet be seen.

The biggest story of 2013? Whether the weak-kneed Republicans in the House can stand up to the onslaught.

“It seems to me that the biggest climate related story of the year hands down is the re-election of Obama.

The EPA will now be unchained. Cap and trade will rise from the grave like a zombie from The Walking Dead television series. The president will use the coming (ongoing?) economic crisis as cover for more radical attacks on coal, oil and gas than have yet be seen.

The biggest story of 2013? Whether the weak-kneed Republicans in the House can stand up to the onslaught.”

Even if Republicans held Senate, they have should some humility.
The Dems firmly hold the Senate and have a president who remarkably [considering economic and foreign policy situation] easily won re-election.
So expecting Republicans to do much within the next 6 months is fairly unlikely. The EPA has been unchained for quite some time.
And everyone seems to be buying guns- it’s not my hobby.
Crime continues to drop significantly except in some places. Dems are filling airwaves with nonsense about gun control and women are increasing using guns [which is remarkably intelligent, considering if anything they need them more than men do]
“Most estimates put the number of American women who own guns between 12 million and 15 million. Of the more than 200 million firearms owned in the U.S., 10.8% were owned by women in 2008, according to a National Opinion Research Center survey. That represented little change from 1980, when 10.5% of America’s guns were owned by women. But if surveys such as the one conducted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation are any indication, an upward trend may be underway.”http://civilliberty.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/Women-Gun-Rights.htm

#1. 2012 marked a new low in Arctic sea-ice, at least until next year. It was half the area of the historical average. Volume has declined even more sharply with evidence of thinner ice being more prone to the effects of storms, and storms being stronger due to more warm water around.
#2. 2012 will easily be in the top ten warmest globally and possibly the top one in the US, despite no El Nino and a cool PDO phase.
#3. Third successive year with 19+ Atlantic tropical cyclones, a number reached only two other times since 1990 before 2010, and possibly only a couple of other times in the last century.

Summer sea ice lowest in 30 years of record keeping. That’s not a very long window of observation for climate. You knew that, right? Meanwhile Antarctic sea ice sets record high. You knew that too, right?

Rather than be reactionary to any given event, best to actually be reasonable about it and find out what we can about the dynamics behind it. In the case of the increasing Antarctic sea ice winter extent, we find this rather nice piece of scientific research:

Both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice melt down every summer and grow back every winter. The record shows that end-summer sea ice in the Arctic has declined since 1979, while that in the Antarctic has grown (albeit at a slower rate).

Studies showed that there was another period of Arctic sea ice retreat in the 1930s, but there were no satellites then, so the record is not complete.

Temperature records in Greenland, for example, showed similar warming to today back in the 1930s and 40s.

The problem is that we do not have a lot of good data before around 1979.

So we really only have a little “blip” of a record, which covers a period during which global (and Arctic) temperatures rose rapidly.

And then again, late summer Arctic sea ice extent does not have any affect on us, and is largely irrelevant in the overall scheme of things.

“Maxok
sorry, but i dont have time to do carry out research for you. I am already up to my eyes in stuff for my article on arctic warming in the 1920-1940 period. I have had to read some 500 papers and distill them.
I borrowed that book from the library a year or so ago as at the time it cost some 300£.(I see its come down a lot in price so I might get it now)”
______
WOW, The Viking World (Routledge Worlds) is one expensive book! Tony, I didn’t bring that book up, you did, and I thought you were using your recollections of it to support a claim Greenland today is not warm enough to grow the kinds of plants the Vikings cultivated when they were there. I can understand if you don’t have the time to address challenging questions I have about a book you don’t have at hand, but it’s not my responsibility to answer questions I have asked you.
In case you overlooked my link to the 2006 Economist article on Greenland, I will quote from it:
“Average temperatures in Greenland have risen by 1.5°C over the past 30 years. The barley is back. Kenneth Hoeth has been growing it, but only as an experiment. Several farmers in southern Greenland are now farming potatoes, turnips and iceberg lettuces commercially. Mr Hoeth is trying out other crops: he is pleased with his Chinese cabbage, which he says is particularly crispy.”

Tony, if you said Greenland’s climate today is not greatly different than it was in the time of its Viking settlements, based on what I know so far, I wouldn’t argue with you.

Hasn’t been an ice bridge from Greenland to Iceland since at least the LIA. A genetic study of Arctic foxes indicates the only plausible way the current population arrived was via a hypothetical ice bridge

click on ice dispersion at very bottom. I cant see an ice bridge. Mind you satellites have their limitations and have difficulty distinguishing between ice, water, and water on ice, the latter being a common ocurrence in summer. its probably a satellite glitch
tonyb

tonyb, just some theories. 1. the Gulf Stream has slowed down and the water is not as warm as it used to be, or 2. Greenland meltwater is fresh water that sits on top of the Gulf Stream water, being less dense, but also is more prone to freezing. Can’t come up with more on short notice. The evidence for the bridge is conflicting at this point.

I came across this in the archives of the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge during the course of my research.

‘observational data of the drifting station 1950-51-by m somov
Volume 1 of 3 of this Russian north pole station on an ice floe

middle of june onwards ‘the melting of the snow and ice took place very quickly although the air temperature remained close to freezing’

‘the sun shone…could walk about without a coat…some even tried to get a sun tan.’

‘because of the thaw an enormous amount of water accumulated on the ice’

‘walking was only possible if one wore high rubber boots reaching above the knees’ (because of the water sitting on the ice.
‘many problems because of the thawing.’

It Described how later in the season some high spots became dry and these were little hillocks in a sea of icy water sitting on solid ice.

This cause me to asked the following question of nsidc .

“I would be interested to have your comments as to how pre satellite researchers estimating sea ice extent could tell the difference between water, water floating on ice and solid ice and how satellites can differentiate between the three states? I was very struck by Russian reports from the 1950’s I read at The Scott Polar institute in Cambridge when staff at the floating research stations commented about having to use wellington boots in order to walk around the station and how little dry ice islands eventually formed by the end of the summer surrounded by water on top of ice.”

I received the following reply;
Tony, using passive microwave data it is very easy to tell the difference between ice and water as the dielectric constant differs quite a bit and this is reflected in large differences in the microwave emission. The main advantage of using passive microwave is that it can see the ice even if it’s cloudy or dark.

There is a problem however in summer when melt ponds form on the ice since the sea ice algorithms then underestimate how much ice there really is (they think it’s open water). That’s one reason why we focus on extent rather than true ice area for the NSIDC sea ice news and analysis web site.

Visible and thermal imagery provides higher spatial resolution but is often hampered by clouds.Trying to do this work using earlier visible and thermal imagery requires the scientists to go through each image and manually filter out the clouds and determine where the ice is.”

When comparing observational material (pre 1979) and post 1979 data we are comparing apples and oranges. After this explanation I remain to be convinced that the satellite data is an accurate representation of ice. What do you think?
tonyb

Gosh. Anthony slams them when they dont post daily data and now they get slamed for doing quality control. They cant win for losing.

Of course Springer never expresses any skepticism about data that agrees with his position. he fails to check multiple sources ( like DMI ) and fails to understand the process of creating the charts and graphs he relies on.
fake skeptic

“Springer never expresses any skepticism about data that agrees with his position. he fails to check multiple sources ( like DMI ) and fails to understand the process of creating the charts and graphs he relies on.
fake skeptic”
______
Yep, and that terminology, “fake skeptic”, is being kind, for the New Year, right?

If you could possibly keep that knee from jerking your foot into your mouth you could’ve deduced that if I presume, for the sake of argument, that maximum ice extent measured by satellites is unreliable then I will also infer that minimum is unreliable as well. That’s called not having your cake and eating it too. I won’t let others do it and I won’t do it myself.

What Anthony Watts has to say about NSIDC data is of no concern to me, by the way. Why should it?

There have been ice bridges across the Denmark Strait in 1965 and again in 1984 but they were late in winter not early. It’s very sensitive to winds blowing off the coast of Greenland which can freeze the water fast.

I consider satellite data reliable without very good reason to believe otherwise. That said, if they can f*ck up bad enough to build 100 miles of imaginary ice in the Denmark Strait over the course of a week I’m less confident in their accuracy overall. It’s uber unusual AFAIK this early in the season but possibly not unprecedented. Certain blocking patterns in the Arctic can cause a rapid freeze across that strait sucking heat out of the water and simultaneously pushing ice formed in the north farther south.

Early April is statistically the maximum ice extent in the strait there’s a wide range from year to year from February to June. Cold winds blowing just right off Greenland will sock it in. It’s very interesting. I might have known at one time closer to when I took Oceanography in college (1981) that most of the water exchange between Arctic and Atlantic oceans is through the Denmark Strait. It’s quite the choke point for a massive amount of thermal energy exchange.

Satillite “glitch”? well, you’d have to look at the processing chain. It can be any one of the following.
A. bad data at the source (on board). i’d check against other platforms
( visible products if its available)
B. Processing uncertainty. Not sure what processing they apply to get
first look data.
C. graphing error. it happens
D. Transient.

From other datasets it doesnt appear to be there. So, you’d have to dig down to the base bits to figure it out. Partly why I don’t think people should be posting daily data that get’s revised. Most folks know how to proceed with first look data, but the Goddards of the world and others who take posted data at face value without going down to the base bits, have somewhat spoiled the drive toward openness. In the past I would have been all for posting raw bits as they stream in, but its become a circus. Damned if they dont post, damned it they do.

Bottom line, you cant tell till you dril down to the base bits. Concluding one way or the other without doing that is just speculation. Fun I suppose.
As far as climate goes, ice down at that latitude is toast. haha

I wouldn’t expect ice to form there at this time of the year as quickly as it seems to have done. Let’s follow this over the next week or two and see what happens. As I said to David I will be in Iceland early April and if the bridge exists I will hope to see it
(nice joke)

The warming of the 1980s and 1990s was at a much faster rate than the slight cooling of the 2000s, so it is obvious that the absolute value of the 2000s should be the highest. Still, 2012 was among the coolest years in the 2000s (only 3 were cooler)

#3 “19+ Atlantic tropical cyclones” – true, but not many top category hurricanes in comparison to earlier years.

No category 4 or 5 hurricanes in 2012 or 2011
Last category 4 hurricane was in 2010
Last category 5 hurricane was in 2007

And when you get to the twenty “deadliest” US hurricanes, only one (Katrina in 2005) occurred after 1969

Jim D, you can use statistics to “prove” almost anything (except the fact that it has not warmed over the past decade).

manacker,
1. taking the 80’s average as the historical average for sea ice is generous because the 80’s were already warmer than the historical average in global temperature. If we had a longer term record I would expect the 80’s to also be below average.
2. creative way to downplay a top-10 year with no El Nino, to say nothing of what happened in the US this year.
3. The good thing about numbers of TCs is it is not as hit-and-miss as the fewer damaging hurricanes. It is a somewhat robust statistic to compare between years.

Whaddaya think sea ice extent was like when Vikings were able to farm Greenland 1000 years ago? Viking farms buried in ice are still turning up as we speak as the glacier retreats which means there’s still more ice today than there was 1000 years ago.

‘to farm Greenland 1000 years ago? Viking farms buried in ice are still turning up as we speak as the glacier retreats which means there’s still more ice today than there was 1000 years ago.”

But as we learned at WUWT melting ice has nothing whatsoever to do with how warm it is. Its wind and storms that melt ice. According to this theory Greenland had less ice in the MWP not because it was warmer, but rather because it was windier and stormier. cant have it both ways

Mosher, I didn’t learn any such thing on WUWT. I barely visit the place anymore and I don’t tend to believe things I read on blogs unless they’re independently verifiable or self-evident. Write that down.

“But as we learned at WUWT melting ice has nothing whatsoever to do with how warm it is. Its wind and storms that melt ice. ”

As we were talking about Viking farms are you suggesting these were on the ice? Come now Mosh, you can have it both ways as arctic ice melt is caused by wind, storms, currents and warmth amongst other factors. Viking farms are surely evidence of warmth?

This details the types of crops the Vikings grew in the 11th century in their Greenland farms and how they were harvested and stored.

The crops are not remotely similar to the ones you referenced in the link. I have also studied the crops of the period as similar ones were grown on upland dartmoor south west England during the same period, which was notably warmer than today . The farms are recorded in the domesday book together with the nature of the farm and their prosperity. The sites of some of them can be seen to this day. Cultivation heights are some 200 metres above the growing contour today
Tonyb

This details the types of crops the Vikings grew in the 11th century in their Greenland farms and how they were harvested and stored.

The crops are not remotely similar to the ones you referenced in the link ,,, ”
______

Sorry, Tony, I’m not buying that book, but I will take your word for what the book says. I remain skeptical of the claim that crops could be grown in Greenland in Viking times that couldn’t have been be grown in recent times, so can you tell me what the book says about the crops and the growing conditions. Specifically, I would like to know the following:

1. How the books’s authors know crops were grown in Greenland in Viking times

2. What kinds of crops were grown

3. Where exactly in Greenland were those crops grown

4. Where there periods back then when the top layer of soil in those areas were frozen year around

5. In recent years Is the top layer of soil frozen year around where those crops were grown.

sorry, but i dont have time to do carry out research for you. I am already up to my eyes in stuff for my article on arctic warming in the 1920-1940 period. I have had to read some 500 papers and distill them.

I borrowed that book from the library a year or so ago as at the time it cost some 300£.(I see its come down a lot in price so I might get it now)

I am currently reading Jean Groves ‘the little ice ages’ borrowed from the Met office library) , which is also very good but as its two volumes (the other one was around 700 pages) it is impossible to plough through it to give you a synopsis.

the barley now is not the same type as it was back then (nor are farming techniques) but it does not fall into the category of crops you originally cited, it requires certain conditions including warmth, sun, light and no frozen roots.

vikimg farms were along the west and south coasts primarily. they tilled the soil and grew crops primarily barley for beer etc but also vegetables.

As the article says it was a little warmer back then but we shouldnt run away with the idea that it was mediterranean like back then. there was a core warmer than today period peaking around 1100 to 1200, with a couple of hundred years to 900 ad similar to today and a hundred years from 1200 with deteriorating temperatures.
hope that helps
tonyb

I put the following reply to Tony in the wrong place. I hope I placed it right this time.

tonybclimatereason said on January 1, 2013 at 6:46 pm

“Maxok
sorry, but i dont have time to do carry out research for you. I am already up to my eyes in stuff for my article on arctic warming in the 1920-1940 period. I have had to read some 500 papers and distill them.
I borrowed that book from the library a year or so ago as at the time it cost some 300£.(I see its come down a lot in price so I might get it now)”
______
WOW, The Viking World (Routledge Worlds) is one expensive book! Tony, I didn’t bring that book up, you did, and I thought you were using your recollections of it to support a claim Greenland today is not warm enough to grow the kinds of plants the Vikings cultivated when they were there. I can understand if you don’t have the time to address challenging questions I have about a book you don’t have at hand, but it’s not my responsibility to answer questions I have asked you.
In case you overlooked my link to the 2006 Economist article on Greenland, I will quote from it:
“Average temperatures in Greenland have risen by 1.5°C over the past 30 years. The barley is back. Kenneth Hoeth has been growing it, but only as an experiment. Several farmers in southern Greenland are now farming potatoes, turnips and iceberg lettuces commercially. Mr Hoeth is trying out other crops: he is pleased with his Chinese cabbage, which he says is particularly crispy.”
Tony, if you said Greenland’s climate today is not greatly different than it was in the time of its Viking settlements, based on what I know so far, I wouldn’t argue with you.

I provided a link that confirmed that it was slightly warmer then that it is now. I also referenced that book because I took notes from it at the time. It was a very good and highly detailed book but it was very expensive. (I already spend some 500 Dollars a year on paywalled and other climate related material)

There are lots of other scholarly books on the subject such as those by Jean Groves and numerous other studies. I suspect that information is sometimes lost then rediscovered, as back in the sixties and seventies Le Roy Laudurie and Lamb were writing about the subject and detailing the crops grown. As Max says a variety of crops were grown and he has listed them.

I never said this;

‘I thought you were using your recollections of it to support a claim Greenland today is not warm enough to grow the kinds of plants the Vikings cultivated when they were there.’ Of course I know they are growing those sort of plants today. Albeit they are different strains and husbandry is much better now, so it isnt like for like.

My point was that the link you originally gave to the tundra etc demonstrated different growing conditions to those needed for cereal crops or vegetables

As I say I think it is a mistake to believe the Vikings lived in an almost mediterranean climate. Life was hard, but that they survived at all with inferior crops and knowledge to today bears testament to the climate of the time, which had a peak slightly warmer than today and shoulder years around the same as today. That was never disputed until recent years. I dont know why that fact should cause you problems?

One last thing before I leave. I mentioed a medieval village dating from the time close to me.. Here it is, I visit it freqiently, it is very atmospheric. ‘The Hounds of the Baskervilles’ was set on the same tor)

The village is mentioned in the Domesday book and was a flourishing (relatively speaking) place. The uplands here supported a substantial farming population in conditions that seem very similar to the Coastal Viking settlements on Greenland. I took the trouble to find out the types of grain grown in both places were similar (not surprising as the Vikings had invaded Britain) The maximum height the crops could be grown at was 1350 feet and the farming moved down the contour slope as the climate worsened.
tonyb

Surprising that Stanford has no ethical standards to curb the restless fire hose of authoritarian negativity, abuse, & harassment. Has anyone formally tallied up how many of those comments were abusive &/or harassing? If WUWT won’t put sensible constraints on the insufferable authoritarian bullying, Stanford should.

The protests against your antarctic graphs have zero traction. (The easiest way to shoot those graphs down would be to produce evidence that the modelers used TSI reconstructions as a model input. FYI for sensible parties: The modelers ignore questions about this and everyone else is also silent about this.)

The protests against the solar-terrestrial-climate weave have catastrophically negative traction. The only way authorities can “disappear” this: unconscionable vandalism of earth orientation data. There’s nowhere to hide from universal laws aside from dark ignorance &/or deception. I have been advised by those who understand my work to press this issue as hard as necessary for as long as necessary until Svalgaard snaps.

Land temperatures, more reliable (from BEST) and more reactive to forcing changes than ocean surface temperatures. It shows what is really happening with little delay. A fast-reaction thermometer of sorts but applied over three decades to remove short-term variability due to sampling.

If you also use a zero aerosol effect, I am sure you can. How much do you believe that effect, and how much will aerosols scale with CO2 in the future? A clue is that the aerosol effect has flattened due to its short lifetime, so its past growth is not a predictor of its future growth which is somewhat limited compared to projected GHGs. See Hansen’s Faustian bargain that we have made with aerosols for a different opinion.

manacker, perhaps you can figure what Nic Lewis did with the aerosol forcing. He plays with the aerosol numbers, scales things, and discards numbers he doesn’t like. I don’t follow it. It ends up that his total forcing exceeds the CO2 forcing because other GHGs are apparently having a greater effect than aerosols. Then he assumes he can get an equilibrium sensitivity even when the ocean hasn’t fully warmed yet to provide the additional water vapor feedback. He does get some of the water vapor feedback because 1.6 C per doubling is a positive feedback for sure, but may well have missed some because the pipeline warming is not just OHC.

I remember a thread a little while back in this blog where Anthony joined in and had an argument with “A_Fan_0f_More_Discourse”, where he said he was resubmitting his paper and that TOB (time of observation) turned out not to be all that much of a problem.

You know it was all a reaction to and an attempt to upstage Muller’s NYT piece that was coming out. This is worst way to do “science”– as a reaction. It was a low point in for WUWT– a dark cloud really, but heck, maybe it was causing some cooling if you ascribe to Willis’ theories.

It’s a good job no-one took WUWT’s “game changing” announcement seriously in summer 2012 or they might have wasted valuable time when the real game changer was to be revealed later by Alex Rawl who showed the IPCC had admitted the Sun caused warming

It’s also a good job no-one took Alex Rawl seriously in fall 2012 or they might have wasted valuable time when the real game changer all along was…(continues into 2013)

““This circle is reserved for those who exaggerated the importance of their work in order to get grants or write better papers. Sinners are trapped in a huge pit, neck-deep in horrible sludge. Each sinner is provided with the single rung of a ladder, labelled ‘The Way Out – Scientists Crack Problem of Second Circle of Hell”

I agree. That is an excellent lead article. I am surprised it didn’t attract more discussion. The fact it didn’t is telling in itself. It shows that those interested in climate change are not much interested in discussing practicable solutions. They are more interested in arguing about irrelevant details such as temperature measurements, trends, modelling, weather events and scary scenarios.

Abstract. Tropospheric ozone and black carbon (BC) contribute to both degraded air quality and global warming. We considered ~400 emission control measures to reduce these pollutants by using current technology and experience. We identified 14 measures targeting methane and BC emissions that reduce projected global mean warming ~0.5°C by 2050. This strategy avoids 0.7 to 4.7 million annual premature deaths from outdoor air pollution and increases annual crop yields by 30 to 135 million metric tons due to ozone reductions in 2030 and beyond. Benefits of methane emissions reductions are valued at $700 to $5000 per metric ton, which is well above typical marginal abatement costs (less than $250). The selected controls target different sources and influence climate on shorter time scales than those of carbon dioxide–reduction measures. Implementing both substantially reduces the risks of crossing the 2°C threshold.

JC comments: This is interesting on a number of fronts.
First, this is a good example of a no-regrets policy, one that is relatively inexpensive with ancillary benefits for human health and development. I suspect that political opposition to this should be pretty small, at least relative to political opposition to stabilizing CO2.

Second, walking before you run is a good strategy. Lets see if we can actually influence the climate in the expected way by reducing the methane and black soot. Not to mention exercise and test the efficacy of international cooperation and actions to reduce greenhouse gases.

Third, this would provide a very interesting short-term climate experiment to test our models and understanding.

So, does anyone see problems with this plan? Looks like win-win to me.

Yes. It looks like a win-win to me too. This is an excellent example of a ‘No regrets’ policy. There are many other opportunities too, including for cutting GHG emissions by the amount the advocates say are needed.

My question is: How can we change focus from advocating impracticable, high cost, ‘many-losers’ policies (as has been done for the past 20 years at the UN climate conferences) to ‘No Regrets’ (win-win) policies?

Worst News of the Year: Climate Fast Attack Plan. Since methane’s half-life in the atmosphere is short, doing something about methane emissions today won’t do anything useful about potentially-catastrophic warming in the second half of the 21st century – except possibly reduce temperature in the next few decades, when public support for legislation will be critical. A perfect example of a government action chosen for political practicality that will waste money and accomplish nothing. If climate sensitivity is low, we waste money reducing methane emissions. If climate sensitivity is high, reducing methane emission will extend the current pause and reduce the motivation for legislation. A perfect “Catch 22”.

Addressing black carbon might do something useful. Unfortunately, the level of scientific understanding is so low, that no one will be able to say what reduction accomplished.

Too late. There hasn’t been any significant warming in 16 years despite unabated growth in anthropogenic CO2. Banning of the incandescent light bulb was evidently all it took to halt short term global warming. Bring back the incandescent bulb, warming will return, and then you have something to scare people with again. No slight intended for polar bears and Inuits but Arctic sea ice decline is not scary and in fact is a benefit opening up a shipping corridor and allowing drilling for oil on the sea floor.

That’s nothing. You can go back and cherry-pick periods when temperature declined and CO2 rose, showing (a) more CO2 reduces the greenhouse effect ,or (b) there is no greenhouse effect anyway. Of course, some people might think you are a moron.

The most important thing is the papers with equilibrium sensitivy outside the ipcc range and the models looking like they overestimate warming. This is very important to get right and the number of new estimates is avoid step

Unlike last year global warming alarmists perhaps will be happy to hear that the N. Hemisphere will have a winter this year; and, they can continue to be dismissive of the free engerprise system as they gather ’round gas furnaces for warmth and dream about flying off to Cancun for margaritas.

The Skeptical Warmist :But as a true skeptic, should the Arctic sea ice decline reverse direction (over a decade or more) and Greenland and Antarctica begin to show net ice mass gains (over a decade or more) …….. then I would be inclined to revise my current “warmist” position.

Hi Gates
Arctic and Antarctic temperatures are driven by different systems.
– Antarctic is much simpler, under direct control of the Circumpolar current and the Circumpolar temperature wave. Expect cooling more in line with the long term solar change.
– Arctic is far more complicated, the warm Atlantic currents inflow is on up, and consequently up is the outflow of the cold Arctic currents, result: warm/er Arctic and cooler N. Atlantic, i.e. prolonged negative NAO phase, nothing to do with CO2, simply matter of geology.
I expect the warmists to keep referring to the Arctic as the AGW proof, ignoring the rest of the N. Hemisphere, which is what actually matters.
btw HNY

Thanks for that Vuk. The differences between the Antarctic and Arctic are indeed quite stark and the natural fluctuations in each most interesting. The reduction in Arctic Sea ice over the past several decades is just one if the pieces of evidence for AGW that we warmists use. Changes in permafrost, net declines in global glacial mass, increases in ocean heat content, changes in species migration and habitation patterns, long term tropospheric warming, stratospheric cooling, shifts in the planetary waves with increasing amplitude and increasing blocking patterns, and so on, are all examples of other strong corroboration that the Earth as a system is gaining non-tectonic energy. The increasing GHG’s of CO2, methane, and N2O provide a reasonable physical basis for this Earth system energy imbalance as they represent an external forcing on the system. If you can provide evidence that the accumulation of energy in the Earth System is not occurring, or that accumulation of GHG could not cause it or that some other external forcing is more plausible then I would love to see it– and it is likely that at some point in the future a Nobel prize awaits you.

Gates
It is not the tectonic energy input into energy balance as such, but the effect of tectonics on the ocean currents balance in the Nordic Seas; critical here is the little known current North Icelandic Jet.
I accumulated data some 2.5 years ago, TonyB has some evidence of the graphic development of the idea at the time, while another incorrigible warmist (certain Steven Mosher) has my Excel file of calculations. If my calculations are any good, there is a bit of ‘mysterious’ connection between the solar activity and tectonics on one hand, and the tectonics and the N. Atlantic temperatures (CET) on the other, possible reason for the the illusive solar link, so favoured by sceptics.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP-SSN.htm
If you can get numerical data for the graph illustration from page10 in this publication ftp://ftp.flaterco.com/xtide/tidal_datums_and_their_applications.pdf
you could be invited to the Stockholm.

I think John Kerry could be the big story. I’m always more worried about what our leaders are going to do about the climate “right now”, rather than the actual climate, which AFAICS is a very slow change in weather over a very long period of time.

Good find. This extract is from the very start of the huge range of assumptions and belief systems that the link displays in abundance.

“First, the size and strength of the storm bore the hallmarks of global warming enhancement. Second, its very unusual trajectory was caused by a climatic configuration that was almost certainly the result of global warming. The storm would likely not have been as big and powerful as it was, nor would it have likely struck land where it did were it not for the extra greenhouse gasses released by humans over the last century and a half or so.

A third reason Sandy was important is the high storm surge that caused unprecedented and deadly flooding in New York and New Jersey. This surge was made worse by significant global warming caused sea level rise. Sea level rise has been eating away at the coasts for years and has probably caused a lot of flooding that otherwise would not have happened, but this is the first time a major event widely noticed by the mainstream media (even FOX news) involving sea level rise killed a lot of people and did a lot of damage. Fourth, Sandy was an event, but Sandy might also be the “type specimen” for a new kind of storm. It is almost certainly true that global warming Enhanced storms like Sandy will occur more frequently in the future than in the past, but how much more often is not yet known. We will probably have to find out the hard way.”

How do you combat people who are willing to see agw in anything that happens. A truly frightening and unscientific mind set.

Last night on BBC TV we had someone suggesting that the unusual position of the jet stream thjeis year, leading to almost non-stop rain, may have been due to the Arctic melt.
Except for one small detail… the jet stream anomaly kicked off several months before the Arctic melt season started.
And here was me thinking that cause has to precede effect… silly me!

I spend some 300 dollars a year on pay walled papers for my research purposes. Most of them aren’t worth the money. Why should I pay good money in order to look at the paper you linked to? It probably uses models rather than observations anyway.

Incidentally what was interesting about the 1930’s and 1940’s is that the Antarctic was warming up at the same time as the arctic. That isn’t happening now, why do you think that might be?

Interesting observation about the 1930’s and 40’s versus now. However, I would caution you to update your research about the longer-term warming trends in Antarctica. Several papers have come out in 2012 that have shown more warming overall than had been previously assumed, such as this recent one:

In general though, the SH has consistently shown less warming (though still warming) than the NH for very good reasons having to do with both the large Southern Ocean heat sink, as well as the generally larger amount of advection of heat from the tropics to the higher latitudes that occurs in the NH versus the SH. This can be seen both in oceans in the THC, as well as in the atmosphere in the MJO and even the numbers of hurricanes that travel North from the equator with all their energy moving poleward versus those that travel South. A long term hurricane map is quite revealing in showing this bias toward the advection of energy north versus south on this planet:

So, when combining the large Southern ocean heat sink along with the natural bias toward the advection of more net energy Northward versus Southward on this planet in both atmosphere and ocean, you very easily see how more warming occurs toward the NH, and especially how vulnerable a closed shallow ocean like the Arctic would be to increased amounts of energy being advected there. The fact that Antarctica is warming at all is, in my way of thinking, rather a remarkable testament to how strong an effect the increasing GHG concentrations have.

So not only is this the bromwich paper using invented, sorry I mean interpolated data, but which shows cooling through this century and makes no ref to the high temperatures of the 30’s and 40’s? And they want to charge me 35 dollars for this?
Tonyb

The Skeptical Warmist said, “The fact that Antarctica is warming at all is, in my way of thinking, rather a remarkable testament to how strong an effect the increasing GHG concentrations have.”

You could look at it that way, but the western Antarctic paper you linked to creates data to fill gaps. Interpolating temperatures in the portion of the globe with the greatest temperature decrease per degree of latitude increase, could tend to smear things a bit. Since that paper is the last of quite a few attempting to “prove” Antarctic warming using sparse data and “novel” methods, I think I would let it age a spell.

Admunsen-Scott has one of the more complete data series and tends to show an out of phase wandering instead of a CO2 signature. Remember, the NH stratosphere temperature data indicates a reduction in general stratospheric warming during the late 80s through the 90s. A shift to more NH thermal capacity due to THC shift would tend to do that.

Mixing apples and oranges can be worked around, but passion fruit is another issue :)

Yep, subscriptions can be expensive and I feel your pain. I tend to find many paywalled articles for free in post or pre-publication form by dong a bit of internet scouring.

Whether or not you personally agree with the Bromwich paper and several others that are showing similar findings of greater Antarctic warming is your business. My larger point was really about the reasons why the SH and Antarctica would show less warming (but still warming) than the NH and the Arctic. It was probably aimed at those who don’t understand the huge differences in ocean and atmosphere energy advection between the hemispheres and the important role of the Southern Ocean heat sink.

Phatboy, is it just me or does it seem that repeating the same mistake often enough in dead tree published peer review literature makes it become a fact? With on-line archives, all the corrections and challenges could be linked before the abstract I would think. it would save a lot of time.

“A shift to more NH thermal capacity due to THC shift would tend to do that.”

____
I have no idea what you are talking about with “more NH thermal capacity due to THC shift…” Thermal capacity of what? The atmosphere? The oceans? Thermal capacity is a physical quality of the constituent components of atmosphere and ocean. Not sure how the THC changes that.

Thanks for taking the time to provide those links, I will look at them over the next few days. My main point was that the data is not robust and that the take home message is that there has been cooling this century and that the earlier warm period is unreferenced so the context is lost.

Skeptical Gates, “I have no idea what you are talking about with “more NH thermal capacity due to THC shift…” Thermal capacity of what? The atmosphere? The oceans? Thermal capacity is a physical quality of the constituent components of atmosphere and ocean. Not sure how the THC changes that.”

Obviously or you wouldn’t mention the K-T extinction with its ~40C tropical oceans as some indication that ACO2e emissions are somewhat likely to produce the same results.

Your list of Antarctic Warming somehow verifying CO2 is mystifying. The uncertainty in the Steig et al. 2009 paper before Hu McCulloch noted an error was so large that originally it was a coin toss. Once O’Donnell et al. managed to publish their rebuttal in 2010 with Steig as an anonymous reviewer, it was shown that the Steig et al. methods tend to “smear” warming over colder regions.

That “smearing” is a common problem associated with attempting to interpolate “temperature anomaly” over a large range of energy. The average “temperature” of the Antarctic is ~-32 C degrees with a maximum of roughly 0 C and a minimum of roughly -90 C degrees. That would be an S-B equivalent energy of ~316Wm-2 at Tmax and ~66Wm-2 at Tmin with the “temperature” variation per degree latitude the highest of any region of the globe due to the general lack of water vapor. The huge difference between the southern pole and the northern pole is due to the thermal isolation of the Antarctic produced by the ACC.

According to Tuggweilder et al., the ACC, which was born with the opening of the Drake Passage, has a “global” cooling impact of ~4 to 6 C. The northern hemisphere warmed by ~3C at the expense of SH cooling of ~3C with still a net “global” cooling of 4 to 6 C degrees. The only change in “forcing” was the increased efficiency of poleward internal heat transport. A more efficient THC.

Also according to Tuggweilder et al. a variation in the average ACC surface wind velocity of 50%, (25% above normal to 25% below normal) can result in a 10 to 20 Sverdrup change in the Atlantic portion of the THC. That is roughly a half of Gulf Stream Flow worth of heat distribution change.

Some jokingly refer to this as “unforced variations” :)

There is a great deal of uncertainty of course, but long term pseudo-oscillations due to ocean internal heat distribution appear to be a significant factor in climate change.

So has there been a Pause in warming or not? Over at Skeptical Science a figure of 0.14 C per decade over the last 16 years is being muted, supposedly as much or even greater than the decades prior to that.
Where does one find convenient calculations of trends over various periods ?

That paper, as usual unfortunately, uses novel statistics to separate signal from noise. In the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere there is a lot more “noise” that anywhere else on the globe. Franzke’s second bullet point is, “In the Eurasian Arctic region only 17 stations show a significant trend” Those stations are around Iceland and Scandinavia. Around 1990 there was a 2 to 3 C jump in temperature in that region. Since Iceland’s climate is closely linked to the THC, which is thought to influence the AMO, the impact of interpolating data in a “noisy” region with a particular “signal” in mind, can produce desirable results but not necessarily accurate results :)

The Franzke paper is new and has to run the gaunlet, but it is one of the first I have seen that noticed that little anomaly :)

Above is the whole satellite record of lower troposphere global average temperature. 34 years of data. Detrending by 0.45 produces a flat trend line so the decadal trend over that period is 0.45 degrees C divided by 3.4 decades or 0.13C per decade.

Looks like it inched down a bit more. It rounded up to 0.14 last time I checked.

Now we see it only takes a detrending of 0.002C to produce a flat trend line. This is “the pause” i.e. 16 years of flat trend. Statistically speaking there was 95% confidence by the usual suspects that there would not be a period such as this exceeding 15 years. That’s the same level of confidence, by the way, that climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is within the range of 1.5C and 4.5C.

Looks like the 5 percenters are coming out on top. Either their confidence was highly exagerrated or they’re just unlucky. You be the judge.

My belated vote for the main item of the year was a paper by Zhou and Tung. They suggested that climate was driven by the Antantic Multidecadal Oscillation and an anthropogenic element. The significance of the paper, which they did not really explore, is that the declining AMO explains the pause in global temperatures, that the temperature may stay flat for a few more decades and, as half of the rapid increase from 1975 to 2005 was caaused by the AMO not humans, models have overestimate projected temperature increases by at least a factor of two.

Thanks for flagging this paper up the other day. One critique I am hearing is that the AMO isn’t an energetically sufficient mechanism to drive global average temperature. How can a regional SST anomaly drive global average temperature up and down?

BBD, I agree that the AMO is not a driver. The whole thing is such a logical mess, AMO is just a SST index, de-trended (or not). There will be a oscillatory signal in any temperature index, global or not. That much is clear so far. De-trending these signals is fooling oneself.

In a recent exchange of emails I used the analogy of ‘pulse’ and ‘heartbeat’. I agreee that it is difficult to see how the AMO could be the ‘heartbeat’, i.e. a primary driver of climate. On the other hand I feel there is growing evidence that it is a ‘pulse’, i.e. something which responds to whatever pseudo-cycle it is that is a major factor in global temperatures.

It is easy to find a trend in the last 16 years by taking the average of the last 8 years and subtracting the average of the first eight years. The trends are in excess of 0.1 degrees per decade for all the major datasets.

The same general picture also holds for the past 15 years, but it is not quite so apparent and critics point out that 1998 (the starting year) was the warmest year of all – so it makes more sense to start at the end of the old millennium (December 31, 2000) [three out of five records show cooling, two show warming].

If you prefer least squares fits, have at it. Too sensitive to outliers, data frequency, and end points for use with the short data records. My method is less sensitive to these, and is just common sense when you think about what signal you are trying to detect, which is whether the recent past was warmer than the further past.

My method was to make use of the much heralded 16-year span in the best way possible to show that the last half of that was warmer than the first. I would prefer ten-year spans to cancel more of the solar cycle, but this was how to deal with 16 years in the way I would normally handle decadal averages.

The most obvious way to detect a trend with a minimum of uncertainty is to divide the period into two halves and look at the average in each half and take the difference. This is what I did.

While that may be the “most obvious” method to you, to me it is one of the least obvious ways. Largely because it doesn’t do what you say it does. It doesn’t detect a trend. It doesn’t minimize uncertainty. And it doesn’t handle outliers better (the non-robustness of least squares regressions to outliers only matters if those outliers are artificial).

In effect, all you’re doing is picking points on an eight year rolling average. It is no less uncertain than if you simply used a smooth to show the same point. In fact, it is more uncertain given the increase in parameters.

Manaker
“The record shows it has stopped warming for now – and no one knows how long this “pause” in the warming will last.”

The “record” shows no such thing.
in order.
1. There are multiple records to choose between. You will not find the same answer with each record. Choosing to look only at one record is fooling yourself.
2. “warming” refers of course to a change over time. So, its ambiguous unless you select a time period, AND when you do select a time period you introduce uncertainty due to analyst choice. Basically fooling yourself
3. Stopped. nobody has demonstrated the following
A) an undisputed data generation model underlying the data
( hint its not a linear process )
B) the existence of a trend in that process that equals zero.
so folks fool themselves by fiting straight lines without understanding the huge assumption they make when they do that.

So, you might “fit” a line to the data ( that’s an assumption that the process is linear ) and you might calculate a best fit to the data, but the trend you get will most certainly not be zero, that is the warming will not be zero.
There might be a 85% probability that the slope of the fit line is greater than zero and a 15% probability that it is less than zero, but in no case will you have proof that the warming has stopped. You only get uncertain statements about whether it is positive, or negative, and I suppose you can construe the latter as evidence for the proposition that cooling has occured.

Hate to be skeptical about your claim, but you havent shown your work.

Nice words, but they do not change the observed data, which show that there has been a “pause” in the warming trend of the 1980s and 1990s, which has lasted 12 to 15 years so far (depending on which temperature record you are looking at).

Whether or not this “pause” will continue for another decade or two is anyone’s guess.

I’d personally say that it is very likely that warming will resume some time in the near future, probably at a lower rate than we saw in the 1980s and 1990s, but that is just a guess.

Let’s not forget this very robust refutation of the very idea of climate modelling:

More than Bernoulli is at issue because Gosselin draws on the classical physics of d’Alembert, do you think the MSM will pay attention to him now that the bombshell paper by Marcie Rathke of the University of Southern North Dakota has been accepted for publication in Advances in Pure Mathematics?

Although ‘Independent, Negative, Canonically Turing Arrows of Equations and Problems in Applied Formal PDE’ may be a hard reading, the abstract is thankfully a model of concision:

Let ρ = A. Is it possible to extend isomorphisms? We show that D´ is stochastically orthogonal and trivially affine. [For real atmospheric systems] the main result was the construction of p-Cardano, compactly Erdős, Weyl functions. This could shed important light on a conjecture of Conway–d’Alembert.

How many more times must the Turing insufficiency modeling hoax be mathematically demolished before Hansen, Mann, and the rest of the pro-modeling crowd publish a retraction ?

Many of you have watched this before, but just in case, just for New Year giggles, here’s a clip from Frank Capra’s 1958 global warming classic, “Unchained Goddess” video:

The dramatic music is particularly impressive. So this AGW “scare” goes way back to the 1950’s at least. Wow, what a long-term plot to take your tax money. The government can barely plan for next year, but a 55 year long plot to take your tax dollars…wow, what planning!

The Slow Progress Toward Sanity: keeping the AGW hoax alive depends solely now on Trenberth’s speculation that in the coldest deep oceans on the planet the waters there must actually be warmer than they should be by an unmeasurable thousandths of a degree.

I don’t know about a list, but it seems the most important “thing” to occur
regarding “climate change” or “global warming” was the increasing use of fracking. Not just in the US but globally.
I also think the storm in the arctic which caused the lowest polar sea ice levels a was dramatic climate event.

I think the hurricane Sandy, provided clear evidence of another reason why that politically the “whole global warming thing” costs lives and makes government not do things which would in the future save lives and mitigate any serious effects from possible severe weather events. Or global warming
makes government more stupid than normal, and without this distraction, one could expect governments would tend to do more rational policies.
Another related aspect is that global warming shifts the blame of lousy governance to the fictitious cause which some mayor talk about instead real
problems which a city or state could do.
Or it’s very doubtful the Sandy will cause other governments to learn any lessons.

For instance a terrible fire in some city, may cause other cities to take sensible steps- do something about building codes or improve emergency response to any future fire. But if instead the political focus was windiness- there isn’t much one do about the wind. So blaming it on the wind, is a lovely tool for politicians- it shifts the blame and is useful scapegoat.

David Springer recommends broad thinking: “Of course you’re interested in what the other side has to say” [posts link to 2007 lecture by Don Easterbrook]

Hmmm … subsequent energy balance observations and analysis affirm that Earth is steadily heating; and so we learn that (1) Don Easterbrook’s 2007 predictions were wrong, and (2) because his predictions had little theoretical basis, there wasn’t much to be learned from their failure.

———————-Definition Science is weak when falsifying it conveys little new knowledge.
———————-

By this definition, Don Easterbrook’s skeptical science is both wrong (which ain’t good) and weak (which is worse), eh?

And isn’t the problem with most skeptical “science”? The data is cherry-picked, the physical theory is non-existent, and so falsifying it teaches us little, and therefore it is just plain weak science, eh?

For the record I’m not interested in references to blogs. Even Wikipedia’s standards are better than that in regard to reliable sources. They grudgingly make exceptions for blogs of actual climate scientists. Skeptical Science doesn’t rise to that bar.

Of course it involves a certain amount of speculation- we know very little
about the rock, and could have better idea about it in about 6 months.
But it could as bright as the Moon and it could be bright enough to see during daylight. And it will be largish sun grazer.

““Comet ISON appears on course to achieve sungrazer status as it passes within a solar diameter of Sun’s surface in late 2013 November. Whatever survives will then pass nearest the Earth in late 2013 December,” NASA astronomers explained in a posting.”

I wonder how many appreciate how fast this going if in about month’s time it goes from very near the sun to passing nearest to Earth. Light speed is around 7 minutes, so not close to that but 150 million km in a month is moving fast as compared whatever velocities humans have ever made something go.
So 150 million km distance in 2.6 million seconds is an average velocity 57.69 km/sec [128,000 mph].
Also we planning a solar probe to get close to the sun- a challenging project which might be finished by 2018, called Solar Probe Plus:

“Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+, previously NASA Solar Probe, is a planned robotic spacecraft to probe the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 8.5 solar radii (0.034 astronomical units or 5.9 million kilometers or 3.67 million miles) to the ‘surface’ (photosphere) of the Sun.[2] The project was announced as a new mission start in the fiscal 2009 budget year. On May 1, 2008 Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory announced it will design and build the spacecraft, on a schedule to launch it in 2015. The launch date has since been pushed back to 2018.
….
As the probe passes around the Sun, it will achieve a velocity of up to 200 km/s (120 mi/s) at that time making it the fastest manmade object ever, almost three times faster than the current record holder, Helios II”

Helios II is closest we send anything to the Sun:
“The sun is still an unexplored frontier. The deep-space probe Helios 2 has flown closer to the sun than any other spacecraft; it made it 32 million miles from the sun’s center. But a team of NASA scientists have designed a spacecraft that can survive at a distance eight times closer than that. ”http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/12/just-ask-flying-into-the-sun.html
So Solar Probe Plus will fly 8 times closer than Helios 2.
But the space rock is going to fly 4 times closer than the yet to be completed Solar Probe Plus.

“2. Anthony Watts preliminary UHI result (now with consideration of TOBs), warming in overstated by 92%.

AR5 should now be stopped until the consequences of these issues are included in about everything else in the report.”

A few minor points.

Anthony’s study is not actually about UHI, but rather about the impact of site quality. Its micro site, not UHI. Second, you should see that there is a new study on UHI written by Zeke hausfather. Its an excellent treatment of the problem using up to date metadata. There is a Modest UHI signal detected in US records, and happily it can be corrected for. ( or you can just drop urban stations with little impact ) Lastly, even if there were a 92% UHI impact it wouldnt change a blessed thing about the estimates of the future of the planet..estimates of sensitivity would not change much ( temperature is in the numerator). Basically, UHI and siting issues are interesting ‘technical” and academic questions, they are not really carbon policy relevant. That’s why they are so much fun.

Actually surface station data is of little use regardless of UHI corruption or not because spatial coverage is abysmal. So the whole discussion is interesting but of academic interest only. The first time we were able to get a decent measure of global temperature came in 1979. Write that down. The instrument record prior to that is regional at best and we should all know by now that global warming is regional in nature by which I mean that one area may be warming while another is cooling and it’s only the sum of all regions that can tell us whether the earth is losing, accumulating, or not changing in retained energy. Alaska, for instance, is suffering the most brutal winters in decades and since the turn of the century the mean annual temperature there has declined over 1C. Except for the northernmost coastal region which has increased 1C.

The holiday is celebration of past year and perhaps more important
it’s about the coming year. And may the beginning of a time called The Teens. Thirteen has never been a unlucky number for me, but no doubt we shall get an earful of instances where 13 is suppose to be unlucky. At moment it seems to me it will be a lucky year.
I don’t know if the year will be particularly prosperous. One can certainly see grim possibilities, but we count our blessing and it’s seems somewhat accumulative in nature. World may seem more dangerous, but overall their has be improvement, less dying from avoidable reasons and more people having better lives.
Government corruption globally may be reaching pinnacle- but one can assign much of it due to increasing wealth, allowing armies of useless bureaucrats- similar to a golden age of France with it’s Sun King, Louis XIV, who built the Palace of Versailles, a tool to ensnare the nobles into performing numerous symbolic rituals.
Hollywood was a similar device [which is already fading?] But I not should not fear the immediate shortage of global extravagance. DC it is said has quite a bit of it..
And what about the censored palaces in China?
Wealth always seems to creates extravagant government which due to sheer mass might manage to convince the public that they are responsible for such wealth. Such thinking is reflected in politically approved instrument called quantitative easing, a expansionary monetary policy.
The decade of 2000 to 2010 was notable is sense it lack global war- this might come as surprise to those who opposed president Bush’s war- and the millions of death it was to have supposed to have caused.http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/15/think_again_war
“Worldwide, deaths caused directly by war-related violence in the new century have averaged about 55,000 per year, just over half of what they were in the 1990s (100,000 a year)”
And we good news in terms of the lowering yearly death [of mostly children] caused by Malaria:http://www.malariajournal.com/content/11/1/93
“This analysis estimates that from 2001 through 2010, scale-up of malaria interventions likely prevented nearly one million (842,800) child deaths across these countries, corresponding with a mean decrease in malaria-caused deaths by 8.2% over the entire period.”

Our world does not resemble the Malthusian catastrophe, as described in 1798 by Thomas Malthus. This doesn’t mean there is shortage Malthusian spokesmen.

But where are we going in the next year- and the years that follow?
Other then possibility of some heavenly light show. I think there other possibilities. Though most will not predictable.
Optimistically, within the time period of 2013, I think we might get a climate model which can predict future climate. That might be a very wild crazy expectation, but seems many factors are coming together which might permit this.
Perhaps regional climate models would be a modest and prudent expectation.
We could have 2013 being china’s year- either bad news or good. And China is suppose land rover on the Moon:
“In the second half of 2013, China’s Chang-e III is expected to land on the moon. Once the lunar rover touches down on the lunar surface, expect a massive wave of propaganda touting its scientific might.”http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/13/world/asia/china-forecasts-stout/index.html
Everyone expecting Iran to get nuclear weapons soon, but maybe Saudi Arabia will be first to be a nuclear weapon state. It’s been long known that Saudi Arabia could become a nuclear state, if it wanted to be one:
““It’s long been believed that the Saudis bankrolled Pakistan’s nuclear program, in the 1970s and ’80s and now wants some reciprocity in the shape of readymade nuclear weapons, paid for by massive financial aid for Islamabad,” UPI said. ”http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/26/252852/s-arabia-mulls-buying-pakistani-nukes/
So, it’s matter of political dynamics- rather than anything to do technology capability. The same applies with Japan, but I don’t see any
political change which cause this to happen for Japanese. But with the Syria mess continuing and Iran continuing to saber rattling, and myriad
of other possible minor events, it wouldn’t be surprising.

A number of people have queried me on my plans regarding the conference at this point. Upon seeing the billboards I (and others) asked Joe Bast to take them down and to his credit he did so promptly. I know people weren’t happy with the non-apology (it’s not what i would have done) but my demand was that the ads be removed, and that was met. People of ordinary goodwill came away disheartened and angry by all this, weary of getting cut on the shards of all the glass houses littering this wretched street. Meanwhile the crowd who hated Heartland last week continue to hate them this week, but with renewed glee and righteous energy, and there will be much delirious piling on for days to come.

My intention as of the weekend was to go and present at the conference as planned […] However, since then I have learned that the other party declined to attend. […] Since that session won’t be happening I have let Heartland know I won’t be attending after all.

Unequivocal would be, say, to condemn it without talking about how you feel the people you don’t like do the same or worse. Or to withdraw from the conference unless the equation was retracted and apologized for, not merely that the billboard expressing it be taken dow, even while leaving up the web site discussion and reaffirmation of the equation.

I was pretty clear that it is some commenters on this site who agreed with the equation. They did. It was obviously not Ross, nor you. If you consider it a slur for me to make a truthful observation about your comment section, that’s probably your lookout for what you allow in your comment section. If you’re fine with the contents, then you should be fine with truthful observations about them.

Ah, the good old days of climate science. Coal trains of death run by deniers versus the unibomber while Peter Gliek heroically (and parenthetically) manufacturers damning documents to augment his cache of purloined memos sprinkled with an AGU meltdown, mt’s meltdown, AW “bombshell”, Muller’s “Bombshell”, Curry’s “BombShell”, Santers’ “Bombshell”, Threnberth’s “Bombshell”, the Mails’ “Bombshell”, who else melted down or “bombshelled”?

o captian my captian lets not forget the nice little professor who tried to bring us the death penalty for thought crimes. Its actually pretty damn funny. A certain segment of folks argue that scientists should be able to engage in advocacy and politics and then when they discover that rhetoric in the public square is pretty damn nasty, they get all butt hurt. And of course they learn to dish it out as well. Guess what folks, when science gets politicized youre in a different rhetorical space, where us/them prevails. where ‘who did it first” matters. where you defend your tribe regardless. where calls to “disavow” are a matter of course. Folks are out trying to sell a message pretending that they are not marketing. fooling themselves, they all are.

I hope you don’t mean “regroup” as in “team up” or worse “conspire”, Cap’n. Some segment of the commentariat would go all Cargo Cult on ‘em.

Tit for tat makes for a nice strategical guide. The problem comes when someone’s getting whacked because of what some other one did. A big problem for defenders of epithets like “defenders of the IPCC”.

Steven Mosher reminds us: “When science gets politicized youre in a different rhetorical space, where us/them prevails. where ‘who did it first” matters, where you defend your tribe regardless, where calls to “disavow” are a matter of course”

We all appreciate that politics has its abusive demagogues, and climate-change denialism does too. But in the long-run (and with the vital help of open public discourse) low-road demagoguery inevitably loses to high-road science, eh?

If only the Leftits could listen to themselves. IPCC scientists have already admitted the simple truth about computer climate modeling:

“In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers ‘what if’ projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. … [T]he projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models.” (Kevin Trenberth)

To simply remain silent in the face of proactive anti-Americanism is the truth that Western academics cannot hide. The taxpayer no longer pays for value. The government-education complex is liberal fascism at work.
When the Leftists ultimately bring America’s version of Chairman Mao to power here the schoolteachers will be the first to be sent to the farms.

Waggy, I don’t know what you think is wrong with farm work. You and Willard should hire out as farm laborers, and learn what it’s like to do a hard day’s work. Sure, you will get your hands dirty, sweat a lot, and have aches and pains, but you will sleep well and have the satisfaction of knowing you have done something tangible. You could also take pleasure in amusing the other farm hands with your philosophy.

I had a farm between 1969 and 1975 and indeed sweated a lot, physically and financially! Its a lifestyle decision since return on capital invested is less than 2% pa and agricultural commodity pricing is completely unrelated to costs. I quit farming commercially in favour of a business advising career and have done OK as it seems to be the case with Peter Lang and Max_OK. Recommend that all young people work on the land for a few years; it will be a youth not wasted.

I would nominate the US Presidential election of 2012, during which climate change and preventing it were hardly every mentioned. In second place, the international climate conference someplace or other where nothing much happened.

2. The Earth’s present climate has two stable points (glacial and interglacial), and we’ve recently been a lot closer to switching back toward a glacial climate than something on the warm side.

N-G: Correct.

3. There’s absolutely no evidence in the climate record of a third stable warm phase that the Earth might transition into.

N-G: Wrong. For eons, until about 30 million years ago, the Antarctic was ice-free. The climate state associated with the ice-free Antarctic was warmer by several degrees and, as one might imagine, had quite a higher sea level.

From there, the lukewarm exercise of defining “skeptic” is sidestepped and we get into a most refreshing conversation.

JimD, “capt. d., so you seem to be saying we can’t have a warm climate state unless the Antarctic melts first, if I understand your objection to N-G’s answer that uses a melted Antarctic as evidence for a third warm state.”

Actually no, there could be a warmer state, but the cause of the previous state would not be CO2 only. The Antarctic has ice because of a change in the internal ocean currents. To go back to the previous state would require a reversal of the cause, shutting down the ACC, which was tectonic movement and lots of erosion. The erosion is not reversible. That should, Tomas may disagree, mean that over a few 100ka periods, climate is non-ergodic, so there is probably no Eocene attractor out there any more.

For the more reliable paleo record, which appears to be paleo ocean for the past few hundred thousand to a few million years, you can actually have some confidence in what leads what. Beyond that a timing error of a few 100ka is not that unusual. Using what appears to be the more reliable paleo, though that is questionable (A and H paper in review) , the overall sensitivity is roughly 1.5 to 4 C, but CO2 is not “primary” since most of the higher end estimates require ice/glacial melt feedback. Last I checked, there is not a lot of that left and more instrumental TCR estimates are moving into the 0.8 to 2 C range with enough divergence from previous models that even Santers and Trenberth are looking for do overs.

The paleo question isn’t about whether CO2 leads the temperature or not. That part is quite clear because it is known that the CO2 is coming from volcanoes and being sequestered by weathering, soil and ocean processes. Their question is how much impact do these large swings in CO2 have on the temperature given that they have to happen from these known geological processes. If you think they are asking the wrong question, you would be somewhat outside of where the current understanding has settled. The full sensitivity if you use the 12 C and 1000+ ppm of the Eocene comes to 6 C per doubling, but that includes the albedo feedbacks (less ice and more vegetation), so it is not the CS in its normal definition.

JimD, “The full sensitivity if you use the 12 C and 1000+ ppm of the Eocene comes to 6 C per doubling, but that includes the albedo feedbacks (less ice and more vegetation), so it is not the CS in its normal definition.”

Correct, the further in the past you try to determine sensitivity the less likely it would be meaningful. There are some paleo estimates as high a 9C, without knowing more about everything in the period, it is just a SWAG that adds to the noise. For the satellite era, a reasonable estimate is 1 to 2 C, period. With the current rate of ocean heat uptake, you have about 400 years to a rough equilibrium that may add 0.7 to 1 C, but the uncertainty is larger than the estimate since there is no real proof that the longer term ~1500 year pseudo cycles, don’t have some influence on the current rate of warming. Most of those 30 to ~1500 year pseudo-cycles are linked to the oceans

“The effect of Drake Passage on the Earth’s climate is examined using an idealised coupled model. It is found that the opening of Drake Passage cools the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere by about 3°C and warms the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere by nearly the same amount.”

Capt. d., the reverse is true. The sensitivity is easier to calculate from large swings in CO2 and temperature that occurred in the Eocene. There is no doubt that albedo changes too when continents freeze over, so they take can that into account when looking for CO2 sensitivity. One way is to ignore those periods of sharp change associated with glaciation.

JimD, “Capt. d., the reverse is true. The sensitivity is easier to calculate from large swings in CO2 and temperature that occurred in the Eocene.”

A sensitivity may be easier to calculate, but that doesn’t make it THE sensitivity. With Eocene like conditions you would have a more stable, uniform surface temperature. A condition were the increase in CO2 could have a stronger impact. Advection kills more of the radiant efficiency. Less advection in the Eocene due to a smaller temperature gradient between the equator and poles would amplify the CO2 impact. Remember that currently the tropics and SH are not warming as anticipated. The internal redistribution of heat that can’t possibly be significant with respect to CO2 forcing, which now seem to be significant with respect to CO2 forcing after the regime shift in circa 1995?

capt.d., the climate change currently is dominated by the northern continents and Arctic ice, not surprisingly as the feedbacks to any forced warming seem strongest at those locations. In the end, the bottom line from the forcing is the net warming, but the transient distribution of that warming is not specified by the forcing, more by the feedback to it. The last time we had this level of CO2 was nearly 30 million years ago in the Oligocene, but that was before Greenland glaciated and before Arctic sea ice existed in the summer, and the deep oceans were 4C warmer. The climate was quite different but it gives an idea what an equilibrium condition for this CO2 level is once Greenland melts, as it has started to.

JimD, and there is the rub. Is the NH dominate warming due to CO2 forcing or is it amplification due to a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors? What probabilities did Curry use?

That is a plot of Iceland Tmin from the BEST data. If you read the Toggweilder paper, they mention that the THC warms the NH high latitudes at the expense of the SH high latitudes. While the AMO is considered a relatively benign, 0.2C minor anomaly, it is detrended under the assumption that it is a relatively benign anomaly. Once you look a little harder at the SH paleo it appears that longer term, multi-century scale pseudo oscillations are the norm.

BTW, Tmin does appear to be much better than Tave for following changes in atmospheric forcing.

JimD, he followed the “wrong” with a specific example that he didn’t qualify. In his 30 million years ago example, there was significant geological changes

Tuggweilder et al. developed an ocean model the estimate the impact of the Drake Passage open and come up with around 4 to 5 C cooler globally due to the ACC with the NH warmer in the process. It is a model and less than perfect, but Lawrence and Stott both haved notice the SH temperature lead of CO2 and Stott even theorizes that SH mid ocean conditions impact CO2 uptake. There is definitely a wealth of Paleo data and with some of the new lipid based proxies, some pretty interesting stuff is in the works.

capt. d., so you seem to be saying we can’t have a warm climate state unless the Antarctic melts first, if I understand your objection to N-G’s answer that uses a melted Antarctic as evidence for a third warm state. This is very subtle hair-splitting.

I wish more skeptics would pay attention to paleoclimate. CO2 has large natural variations on timescales of millions of years from volcanoes and continent building and natural sequestration in the soil and ocean. It happened that temperature varied concurrently in a way consistent with AGW. Browns seems to be one of the ABC people (believes Anything But CO2) bringing in solar fluctuation and spiral arm theories, etc., for climate change that don’t account for the coincidence in the CO2 and temperature (and no, outgassing doesn’t work when you consider the carbon budget).

CO2 is the principal forcing that caused the slow Cenozoic climate trends. The total amount of CO2 in surface carbon reservoirs (atmosphere, ocean, soil, biosphere) changes over millions of years due to imbalance of the volcanic source and weathering sink, and changes of the amount of carbon buried in organic matter. CO2 is also a principal factor in the short-term climate oscillations that are so apparent in parts (b) and (c) of Fig. 1. However, in these glacial-interglacial oscillations atmospheric CO2 operates as a feedback: total CO2 in the surface reservoirs changes little on these shorter time scales, but the distribution of CO2 among the surface reservoirs changes as climate changes. As the ocean warms, for example, it releases CO2 to the atmosphere, providing an amplifying climate feedback that causes further warming.

The fact that CO2 is the dominant cause of long-term Cenozoic climate trends is obvious Earth’s energy budget. Redistribution of energy in the climate system via changes of atmosphere or ocean dynamics cannot cause such huge climate change. Instead a substantial global climate forcing is required. The climate forcing must be due to a change of energy coming into the planet or changes within the atmosphere or on the surface that alter the planet’s energy budget.

Solar luminosity is increasing on long time scales, as our sun is at an early stage of solar evolution, “burning” hydrogen, forming helium by nuclear fusion, slowly getting brighter. The sun’s brightness increased steadily through the Cenozoic, by about 0.4 percent according to solar physics models (Sackmann et al., 1993). Because Earth absorbs about 240 W/m2 of solar energy, the 0.4 percent increase is a forcing of about 1 W/m2. This small linear increase of forcing, by itself, would have caused a modest global warming through the Cenozoic Era.

Continent locations affect Earth’s energy balance, as ocean and continent albedos differ. However, most continents were near their present latitudes by the early Cenozoic (Blakey, 2008; Fig. S9 of Hansen et al., 2008). Cloud and atmosphere shielding limit the effect of surface albedo change (Hansen et al., 2005), so this surface climate forcing did not exceed about 1 W/m2.

In contrast, atmospheric CO2 during the Cenozoic changed from about 1000 ppm in the early Cenozoic (Beerling and Royer, 2011) to as small as 170 ppm during recent ice ages (Luthi et al., 2008). The resulting climate forcing, which can be computed accurately for this CO2 range using formulae in Table 1 of Hansen et al. (2000), exceeds 10 W/m2. CO2 was clearly the dominant climate forcing in the Cenozoic.

JimD, “Browns seems to be one of the ABC people (believes Anything But CO2) ” Not really, Brown is more of a think before jumping kinda guy.

N-Gs “wrong” is meaningless. Because a condition once existed does not mean it will exist in the future. N-G should think, “What caused the dramatic change 35 million years ago? Is that cause a reversal process?” So Brown is not an anything But CO2, he is a realist.

capt. d., because a third state existed in the past, as the second state did, doesn’t mean either can’t exist in the future. Brown was wrong to say such a transition is impossible, so N-G was correct to say ‘wrong’.

“capt. d., because a third state existed in the past, as the second state did, doesn’t mean either can’t exist in the future. Brown was wrong to say such a transition is impossible, so N-G was correct to say ‘wrong’.”

Doesn’t third state always have much warmer oceans than we have currently?

JimD, “so N-G was correct to say ‘wrong’.” I said the “wrong” was meaningless. There is no guarantee that any state will exist in the future only probabilities. Since there is strong evidence that the separation of the Antarctic from south America played a large role in thermally isolating the Antarctic, that condition would need to be considered as reversible or not.

Since that change, there have been glacial/interglacial cycles, those cycles may or may not repeat or may shift to a new frequency. Since that cycle has repeated more often in the past few million years and did exist in a warmer climate, it is less likely that it will not repeat, but no guarantee.

Now while all the little things that are building up stressing the CO2 as a “main” driver theory, is not a bad time to revisit some “conclusions” that might have been a touch hasty.

gibaiki, “Doesn’t third state always have much warmer oceans than we have currently?”

A third state would be in the eye of the beholder. It could be warmer ocean state, a much colder state, a more variable state or a more stable state. It just has to be a significantly different state. The bi-stablility is just the typical range from colder to warmer states.

capt. d., look what statement N-G said ‘wrong’ to. It was a very absolute negative of even a possibility of a third state that may happen in earth’s climate. Wrong to be that absolute based on past evidence of that state lasting through geological periods.

“gbaikie, yes, in the Eocene, 50 million years ago, the deep oceans may have been 12 C warmer. This requires a strong and sustained climate forcing by some process.”
Ok, but also all of them, not just Eocene. Though Eocene is much relevant to our present situation.

So can’t we assume that more than 5 C warmer deep ocean, fit’s the definition of impossible within a period less than 1000 years?

So for practical purposes isn’t Robert Brown correct. Maybe once we get to a point in time where deep ocean are say, 3 C warmer [perhaps as much as thousands of years in future] we can assume third state isn’t on the table?

Brown wasn’t referring to a timescale and neither was N-G. Yes, it would take hundreds to thousands of years for the ocean to warm that much, and for Antarctica to melt. Greenland and the Arctic sea-ice would go first and their loss of albedo would accelerate the warming process. Interestingly from Hansen’s ‘target’ paper, as darker vegetation expands northwards into the current brighter dry tundra areas in a warming world, the albedo will also drop and that has a positive feedback too.

” Yes, it would take hundreds to thousands of years for the ocean to warm that much, and for Antarctica to melt. Greenland and the Arctic sea-ice would go first and their loss of albedo would accelerate the warming process. Interestingly from Hansen’s ‘target’ paper, as darker vegetation expands northwards into the current brighter dry tundra areas in a warming world, the albedo will also drop and that has a positive feedback too.”

As for acceleration of warming due ice melting- I grant this very noticeable effect, locally.
But I have a problem with considering this warming having a significant effect on a global scale.

In other words, if the ice extant is over a large area of Earth surface, it’s effect will be more powerful on global temperature.

Another factor in regards to global effects of ice coverage is the intensity of solar energy involved. So in terms an ice covering America, this has a significant global effect [large area and large amount of solar energy involved].

gbaikie, the paleo record shows noticeable jumps where Antarctica glaciated and melted, consistent with but smaller than the jumps in the ice ages.
On the other, point, yes, summer sea-ice extent matters a lot due to the solar effect and most of it has 24-hour daylight with the pole being tilted towards the sun. In the winter that area stays dark, so no albedo effect.

Robert Brown “….First of all, we haven’t been able to properly/directly/reliably observe what the sun has been doing for much more than 30 years, certainly not for thousands of years. …”

The sun is interesting object in our solar system.
In terms space exploration, I think exploring the Moon to find resources we could commercial use, should be a high priority [it hasn’t been, btw].
Many people don’t value the idea of humans going into space, and instead think the focus should be focused on “Science”.
And I think if the focus should mostly about “Science” then we should focused on the Sun as the sole object of interest. Because understanding the sun is truly something value to all people living on Earth. And we know very little about our sun.
In terms various space mission the Sun has been studied for more 30 years
and gets funding- but it’s been the highest priority. Which I think should be, again, assuming human exploration should not be a priority.

So in terms of scientific interest the sun as a “destination” should be heavily underlined, but in terms general exploration of space the focus should be to quantify and identify space resources usable in the near term [within a couple decades]- and do this would lead to more science being done in space.
Or the colonize of America was path to science. The idea of sending scientific crews from England to study North America faun and the ways of it’s Indians is not fast way to gain scientific knowledge of the New World.
If you wanted to do this from England, it’s better if there colonies in America. And in the end it’s the Americans themselves who really going end up doing most the science you could have wanted to be done.

So a consequence of getting toe hold in space, is commercial interests, but one also going gain a lot science- it will become far more affordable to do.
And the Moon is a good place to study the Sun. {And the rest of the Universe].
In America was place for England to repair and refurbish sailing ships. The Moon should a place to get rocket fuel. Once you lunar rocket fuel available
the rest of solar system is more accessible- the Moon is the gateway to solar system [and a destination, itself, for many possible projects].
The lunar surface is going to be “an ice core/tree ring record” for billions of years of solar activity. It’s also a record of other events regarding the solar system and galactic events. It is a time machine- which in many ways is better than the Earth’s geological record.

You write that you “wish more skeptics would pay attention to paleoclimate.”

The problem is: the subjective attribution estimates based on interpretations of dicey paleo proxy data for carefully selected periods of our planet’s geological past using the “argument from ignorance” (“we can only explain this if we assume…”) are little better that reading tea leaves.

In effect, you can “prove” almost anything you want to with this method.

That is why “consensus” seekers like this method.

But it is also why many skeptics are em… skeptical of paleoclimate interpretations.

The problem is: the subjective attribution estimates based on interpretations of dicey paleo proxy data for carefully selected periods of our planet’s geological past using the “argument from ignorance” (“we can only explain this if we assume…”) are little better that reading tea leaves.

Nope. See H&S12. 65Ma isn’t a ‘carefully selected period’. It’s the entire Cenozoic. What more do you want?

Nice BBD, now we just need that thing outside the paywalls
“Over the past 65 million years, this reveals a climate sensitivity (in K W−1 m2) of 0.3–1.9 or 0.6–1.3 at 95% or 68% probability, respectively. The latter implies a warming of 2.2–4.8 K per doubling of atmospheric CO2, which agrees with IPCC estimates.”

The way I read that we get a 95% interval from about 1.1 to 7.1
and a 68% interval from 2.2 to 4.8

The other thing I like is that the specify the climate sensitivity as it should be specified. the whole sensitivity to doubling confuses so many skeptics.

Your religion is based on the claims you make for carbon dioxide which bear no relation to anything in the physical world around us – your magic/divine version of carbon dioxide can drive global temperatures 800 years before it shows any inclination to move at all!

Are you really incapable of seeing how ludicrous your doctrines? How can you possibly think it rational for the “Greenhouse Effect” to claim that “carbon dioxide levels haven’t been higher than 300 ppm for the last 800,000 years” and in the same breath claim it drives global warming when it had nothing at all to do with the dramatic melting of gazillions tons miles high ice sheets in the eight interglacials during that time? When sea levels rise c350 feet!

You could try making a new year’s resolution to begin to think in joined up logic..

So what if you double, triple, quadruple carbon dioxide? You have nothing to show that it has any effect of forcing and all real world empirical measurements falsify your claims because these show that carbon dioxide plays no part in forcing. How can that not get through to you?

All we get is gobbledegook claims about carbon dioxide from you with no rational physical logic to back it up because there is none, claims about forcing is just the tip of iceberg, there’s also all the other nonsense fisics you all spout, typically such as here:

How silly can you get? Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air! It can’t accumulate for thousands of years, not even hundreds, not even tens.. you have no gravity in your doctrines. Put back the Water Cycle… You have no rain in your doctrines. All rain is carbonic acid. The Water Cycle washes down all the carbon dioxide around and brings it back to Earth.

The good thing about paleoclimate is that there is millions of years of evidence and there are many threads leading to consistent information about temperature and CO2 levels. This field has converged on its current state of understanding with little of no counter-argument from skeptics, possibly because there is simply too much published to deny. The knowledge within the Cenozoic Era is particularly well settled with papers that came out since the AR4 report. The skeptics are going to have an uphill battle to add the doubts back.
Beerling and Royer (2011) found here is particularly interesting.http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/publications.htm
Convergent Cenozoic CO2 History
There is just a lot of science going on that the skeptics are missing out on, or more likely, dismissing through not wanting to know.

The paleo climate with regard to CO2 can be taken in one of two ways: CO2 increase precedes temperature increase or CO2 increase follows temperature increase. The latter is the more credible explanation as it is very well known that a warmer ocean holds less CO2 in solution. There is also an approximate 400 year time lag in ice cores showing temperature rising then CO2 rising. Spare me the ad hoc explanations for why it appears that way but it really didn’t happen that way.

That record that’s cited contains three time points, when CO2 level was lower than average and temperature began to rise and three other time points, when CO2 level was higher than average and temperature began to decline.

In addition, the temperature change preceded the CO2 change by several hundred years.

Albedo plays its part. In a slowly cooling Cenozoic. The question is how do we explain the general cooling trend since the peak Eocene hothouse ~50Ma without reference to the ~10W/m^2 reduction in CO2 forcing? This is the *only* major forcing change over the ~50Ma period sufficient to account for the overall cooling trend.

.britannica.com has reasonable summary of cause global climate:
“Earth has experienced both extreme warmth and extreme cold during this period. These changes have been driven by tectonic forces, which have altered the positions and elevations of the continents as well as ocean passages and bathymetry.”http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/121632/climate-change/275794/Cenozoic-climates
And:
“60 million years ago, the location of the continents was quite close to that of the present-day (Fig. 5.14). However, a relatively large seaway was present between North and South America while Antarctica was still
connected to South America. The uplift of Panama and the closure of the Central America seaway likely modified the circulation in the Atlantic Ocean, possibly influencing the glaciation over Greenland. More importantly, the opening, deepening and widening of the Drake Passage (between South America and Antarctica) and the Tasmanian Passage (between Australia and Antarctica) allowed the formation of an intense Antarctic Circumpolar Current that isolates Antarctica from the influence of milder mid-latitudes and increased the cooling there. Finally, the uplift of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau strongly modified the monsoon circulation in these regions. Those few examples illustrate the strength of the driving force associated with the changes in boundary conditions due to plate tectonics. This role should not be underestimated.”http://stratus.astr.ucl.ac.be/textbook/chapter5_node10.xml

Britannica’s ‘reasonable explanation’ is at odds with the current view in paleoclimate which is that the ocean gateway hypothesis cannot explain a cooling trend spanning 50Ma. It seems unlikely that *discontinuous* gateway events could be responsible for such a long-term phenomenon. See Barron et al. (1981); Kennett (1977); Maier-Reimer et al. (1990); Mikolajewicz et al. (1993).

For some reason you elected not to quote this from the Britannica article you linked:

Recent evidence suggests that decreasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide during this period may have initiated a steady and irreversible cooling trend over the next few million years.

Now consider the argument in HS12 that the 50Ma cooling trend from the Eocene Optimum to the present is the result of a slow decrease in CO2 concentrations because no other forcing decreased so much over the 50Ma since the Eocene Optimum.

Let’s also recall that 2012 saw Junior asking to agree to disagree about his claim that Field misrepresented the courageous SREX report, and dodging the bullet that he turned a blind eye on Christy’s misrepresentations submitted under oath:

We can surmise that if Albatross misrepresented Junior, the latter would have said so, for Junior’s certainly the most misrepresented climate blogger, at least if we believe his constant claims to that effect.

> The 1st order draft of Chapter 5 at that site is only figures and info. No text.

No response to grypo’s observation.

***

On Aug 3, 2012 at 5:09 PM, Tom Curtis asks:

> Out of interest, can Steve McIntyre link us to a publicly accessible and IPCC authorized source for his quotes from the drafts, or is he publicly endorsing the violation of non-disclosure agreements as a general practice?

> That is not the one you [Steve] are quoting from. Where can we get that copy to see it for ourselves what is in the rest of the chapter? The one at Appell’s site, AR5-Ch5-FOD is just figures and explanations of figures. No text in there.

For most of its existence, mankind’s well-being was dictated by disease, the elements and other natural factors, and the occasional con¬flict. Virtually everything it needed—food, fuel, clothing, medicine, transport, mechanical pow¬er—was the direct or indirect product of living nature.

Good harvests reduced hunger, improved health, and increased life expectancy and popu¬lation—until the next inevitable epidemic, crop failure, natural disaster, or conflict. These Malthusian checks ensured little or no sustained growth in population or well-being.

Then mankind began to develop technolo¬gies to augment or displace living nature’s un¬certain bounty. Gradually food supplies and nutrition improved and population, living stan¬dards, and human well-being advanced halting¬ly. The Industrial Revolution accelerated these trends. Mankind broke its Malthusian bonds. Growth became the norm. Population explod¬ed, along with living standards and well-being.

Technologies dependent on cheap fossil fuels enabled these improving trends. Nothing can be made, transported, or used without energy, and fossil fuels provide 80 per cent of mankind’s energy and 60 per cent of its food and clothing. Thus, absent fossil fuels, global cropland would have to increase by 150 per cent to meet cur¬rent food demand, but conversion of habitat to cropland is already the greatest threat to biodi¬versity. By lowering humanity’s reliance on liv¬ing nature, fossil fuels not only saved humanity from nature’s whims, but nature from human¬ity’s demands.

Key to these developments was that these technologies accelerated the generation of ideas that spawned even better technologies through, among other things, greater accumulation of human capital (via greater populations, time-expanding illumination, and time-saving ma¬chinery) and faster exchange of ideas and knowl¬edge (via greater and faster trade and communi¬cations).

Thank you for this. I’ve had a quick scan of the figures. It seems fossil fuels and CO2 have been excellent for human well being.

A question to ponder is: How much worse off would we be without fossil fuels and how much better will the future be when we have access to cheap energy provided by fuels that are 20,000 to 2 million times more energy dense than fossil fuels?

Thanks for the link Faustino. A good read for the start of a new year. Humans are creatures of nature and their use of natural resources should therefore be regarded as part of the evolution of this planet and that of the elements that it comprises.

An obvious conclusion we can draw from this paper is the extent to which the so called ‘Progressives’ (actually anti-progress) have held back progress and are continuing to do so. People like Robert, Joshua, and the many other ‘Progressives, who passionately detest profit motive, big companies, free markets and free trade, could get a lot out of reading this paper – if they could open their minds.

The impediments put in the way of the development of natural resources in many countries around the world will ultimately make these countries less competitive with countries like China, India, and Brazil. Its hard enough for companies to raise the required development capital in the current economic climate without having to contend with “progressive” style taxes and environmental caveats.

It should noted that humans don’t need fossil fuel to get into space.
An aspect of fossil fuels it is a cheap source of energy and humans
don’t need a cheap source of energy to go into space- or cost of
rocket fuel is not a main cost factor of getting into space. Or rocket fuel
could cost 10 times more than current prices and this wouldn’t have
much effect upon launch costs. Or even though a rocket may use a lot
of rocket fuel, there other costs which cost a lot more than rocket fuel
costs. And finally, if rocket fuel was a high cost of getting into space,
there options of lower amount of rocket fuel needed.

But flying airplane without fossil fuels is a lot more difficult. And to go from not flying airplanes to space travel is quite a technological leap. And airplanes needed the internal combustion engine- without a relatively powerful and lightweight engine, the Wright brothers would not been able to fly a plane.
And flying anything requires certain skill.
Whereas one could make airplane powered by nuclear energy- a nuclear airplane wouldn’t a good plane to train and improve one’s flying skill and/or develop aircraft technology.

Therefore aliens getting into space without available fossil fuel seems quite difficult though without technology of fire [metallurgy, etc] it’s of course, even more difficult/unlikely.

Also alien civilizations are unlikely to have the same amount fossil fuel as
we do. It’s possible they have a lot more or possible they have a lot less then we do.
And whether they start with a lot more or a lot less than we did, it’s possible they consume most of it before get to the technological point of beginning to fly airplanes.
Humans used some coal fairly early in their history, but widespread use crude oil only occurred after the Age of Steam.
And so it’s conceivable that alien intelligent life were early adopters of crude oil, and used it for thousands if not millions of years.

Another possibility is their environment simply does create or does have
this resource do to life or geological processes or it has it available in inaccessible locations. Without a mature industry mining oil on land, it’s unlike we would have started oil mining off shore.
Or one could have social taboos regarding crude oil- whether sacred or unholy.

I’m sorry but your thesis that rocket fuel is not a large cost component is not correct. The metric you need to know about is cost per pound delivered to orbit. You are conflating the delivery cost with the cost of the goods delivered. The goods are usually prohibitively expensive because they must be 1) able to survive in extremes of temperature, pressure, and vibration and 2) be as low-weight as possible because the very high cost of delivery per pound and 3) be packaged in a minimalist manner that will fit in the fixed size cargo areas of the delivery vehicle.

If we were delivering adobe bricks to orbit instead of communications satellites or living humans the cost of the fuel would be nearly the entire cost. That’s because we wouldn’t care if one in ten rockets exploded before reaching orbit because all we lose is bricks and the cost of the rocket. Making the rockets 99% reliable instead of 90% reliable is far more costly than biting the bullet and watching 10% of our rockets explode before reaching orbit. So we could make the rocket itself on the cheap – essentially a flying fuel cannnister – if we didn’t care about losing every tenth cargo on average.

Pay particular attention to the contrast between Soviet Soyuz vs. US Saturn IV technology and engineering tradeoffs that came with each. Soviets went for low performance cheap rockets and cheap fuel (kerosene/oxygen for all three stages) and US went the expensive route (hydrogen/oxygen for upper stages. Note which of the designs is still flying and which isn’t too.

“Sohag – A physics student from Egypt’s Sohag University, Aisha Mustafa, 19, has patented a new type of propulsion system based on quantum theory that she says could propel space probes and artificial satellites without using any fuel.
According Gizmodo, Aisha’s new system exploits the quirky laws of quantum physics which state that in spite of appearances, space really is not vacuum but that it is a seething cauldron of fundamental particle interactions involving creation and destruction of “virtual particles.”
Mustafa believes it is possible to use vacuum energy fields to create propulsion and build spacecraft propulsion systems that need little or no fuel to travel in space. According to Fast Company, Mustafa is betting on exploiting quantum effects involved in dynamic Casimir effect and the Casimiri-Polder force. She uses two silicon metallic plates in a vacuum, “like capacitors placed a few micrometers apart.” The plates interact with the virtual photons in the quantum field and generate a net force that is either an attraction or a repulsion depending on their arrangement. “

“I’m sorry but your thesis that rocket fuel is not a large cost component is not correct. The metric you need to know about is cost per pound delivered to orbit. You are conflating the delivery cost with the cost of the goods delivered. The goods are usually prohibitively expensive because they must be 1) able to survive in extremes of temperature, pressure, and vibration and 2) be as low-weight as possible because the very high cost of delivery per pound and 3) be packaged in a minimalist manner that will fit in the fixed size cargo areas of the delivery vehicle.”

Falcon -9 launch costs about 50 million. The cost of the rocket fuel is about $700,000. Even if rocket costs 7 million it still would be 1/7th of total cost of launch. Falcon-9 is cheapest launch vehicle available- and so the percentage of rocket fuel of total cost is about the lowest.
Liquid oxygen is highest mass involved in rocket fuel- and it is fairly cheap and not a fossil fuel. One also have assume aliens have oxygen as part of atmosphere- and without a cheap oxidizer, any fossil fuel isn’t necessarily an energy source, nor cheap.
But you correct about the rest, the payload almost always is more expensive than cost the launcher. Normally, even cheaper satellites are more than 100 million dollars. And so high confidence that a rocket will successful deliver the payload is the most important element regarding
the launcher.

“If we were delivering adobe bricks to orbit instead of communications satellites or living humans the cost of the fuel would be nearly the entire cost. ”
Not correct.
If needed to deliver a lot bricks to orbit [hundreds tons- many launches, one could expect to get a lower cost. But probably not as cheap as somewhere around 30 to 40 million as compared to 50 million for single Falcon-9 launch. Or doubt one could negotiate it as low as 20 million, and so rocket fuel is still an insignificant cost.
A thousand of tons or hundred launches of brick,
one might get as low as $10 to $20 million per launch. Falcon-9 delivers
13,150 kg (29,000 lb) to 28 inclination LEO. and so 13,150 kg (29,000 lb)
of bricks @ 20 million is $1520 per kg/$690 per lb. Launch costs would need get below $200 per lb for rocket fuel cost become an important issue.
Though with new launcher [without future launches already scheduled] one could possible get a much better prices than above. As the bricks could regarded as test launch payload- and a new rocket needs to prove the new rocket can reliably launch payloads- in order to get customers.
With crew, with Falcon-9 one needs a dragon capsule, which is about 50 million or more. So 7 seats. 100 divide 7 is $14 million per seat. And NASA currently paying somewhere around more than $40 million per seat for Russian Soyuz launch to ISS.

“That’s because we wouldn’t care if one in ten rockets exploded before reaching orbit because all we lose is bricks and the cost of the rocket. Making the rockets 99% reliable instead of 90% reliable is far more costly than biting the bullet and watching 10% of our rockets explode before reaching orbit. So we could make the rocket itself on the cheap – essentially a flying fuel cannnister – if we didn’t care about losing every tenth cargo on average.”

The brick payload “value” to rocket launcher maker would be to prove the rocket has better than 95% successful rate. A 90% launch rate isn’t good enough to launch crew or satellites. So rocket maker could afford to give a price near cost, with plan of increasing the value of the launcher. Though What you talking could work might if was enough market for low value payload. So if rocket fuel was delivering rocket fuel [which almost as cheap as brick] and one could deliver a lot rocket fuel within a short period of time, it could work with a only 90% success rate [or worse].

Wanted to say more about this. As this concerning very important aspect which regarding opening up space frontier.

“If we were delivering adobe bricks to orbit instead of communications satellites or living humans the cost of the fuel would be nearly the entire cost. That’s because we wouldn’t care if one in ten rockets exploded before reaching orbit because all we lose is bricks and the cost of the rocket.”

If there was enough market demand for rockets, the downward pressure for lower price could lead to launch cost being so low that the cost of the rocket fuel cost could limit lower costs.
Or getting into space could similar to airline business- cost of seat which determines seat price has something to do with the cost of kerosene jet fuel. Or the cost of fuel is around 10-20% of cost of the flight. Or like a automobiles the lifetime gasoline cost can approach the cost of the vehicle itself.
So with airlines their purchase of a plane may be around 200 million dollars, and they need to fly a lot people within a short period
of time to pay for the 200 million dollar vehicle.
And obviously if had rebuild the plane every time had a flight, seat tickets could be 5 or 10 times higher [mainly because of downtime].
As it is there is currently little plane maintenance, refuel and clean the passenger area, etc. And so it’s all about turn around and keeping the plane flying 24 hours a day.
Such re-usability of vehicle beyond the wildest expectation in regards
space vehicles.
The Space Shuttle orbiter required months of maintenance to “reuse” or “rebuild” the orbiter. The X-prize requirement was mainly about reuse the suborbital spacecraft within a time period of about week- and suborbital craft is much easier than vehicle going into orbit.

If you could reuse a space launcher and get ready within week, this would quite an achievement [hasn’t been done] and there has been effort to get to such a point. The Space Shuttle was built with idea of possible reaching this level of re-usability. And this largely the goal of
planned prototype of VentureStar- a billion dollar was spent by NASA before it was cancelled due lack of achieving it’s development goals.
So this has been grail which has been seeked.

And I think it has been somewhat pointless or the wrong approach.

The standard approach used in non-experimental space vehicles – has been the expendable rocket. It’s cheaper to design rocket so it’s parts are not recoverable or reusable.
With this approach, one focuses on making a fairly cheap rocket- rocket are inherently a simple vehicle.
Rocket engines are the most expensive component and one can focus on making cheap rocket engines- or in case Atlas rocket, buying cheaper Russian rocket engines.
A reason the Russian engines are cheaper is because Russians focused on making a lot of standardized rocket engines.

Making a lot of rocket engines is good idea to lower their costs- it’s also SpaceX’s approach, which uses a lot rocket engines [falcon-9- has 9 engines] instead 1 or 3 larger engines.
And design them so if one engine blows up it’s shielded so as to not blow up the other engines and allowing for engine to fail and still make it to orbit- which exactly what happened in SpaceX’s last launch- 1 engine blew up, and still had enough margin to get to orbit.
This was also the design of the Saturn V rocket- also had engine failures and also never failed to reach orbit.
On paper it can look cheaper to make less engines [bigger engines] and make them have very low failure rate, but this fails to account for various factors. But ideally, this might be the case.

The important aspect is cheaper cost to orbit can be achieved but
biggest barrier is lack of market- not enough launchers are launched per year. And getting to say $500 per lb of payload to LEO is possible
if there is enough market.
But a more important aspect is the launch cost is not the major cost.
Or for satellite launcher or NASA robotic [rather than manned] the cost
of launch is a small fraction of costs. And that lowering these other costs could reduce costs more dramatically.
One could lift rocket fuel on non-reliable rockets, and launch crew and satellites on very reliable rockets. That *could* significantly lower total costs- save lives and save very expensive satellites.
And it allow re-usability spacecraft in space [huge savings in costs].
And probably most important, doing this could start a market for rocket fuel in space.

Pay particular attention to the contrast between Soviet Soyuz vs. US Saturn IV technology and engineering tradeoffs that came with each. Soviets went for low performance cheap rockets and cheap fuel (kerosene/oxygen for all three stages) and US went the expensive route (hydrogen/oxygen for upper stages. Note which of the designs is still flying and which isn’t too.”

I will put off commenting last paragraph [the hydrogen vs kerosene is an often discussed issue]. Instead I wish discuss the provided reference.
Up this point which will quote, I generally agreed with it. And in sense I do agree with some some aspects of the conclusions but I also find it interesting about the larger planet and some of it [the main conclusion] I strongly disagree with.
Size of an alien planet:
“If the radius of our planet were larger, there could be a point at which an Earth escaping rocket could not be built. Let us assume that building a rocket at 96% propellant (4% rocket), currently the limit for just the Shuttle External Tank, is the practical limit for launch vehicle engineering. Let us also choose hydrogen-oxygen, the most energetic chemical propellant known and currently capable of use in a human rated rocket engine. By plugging these numbers into the rocket equation, we can transform the calculated escape velocity into its equivalent planetary radius. That radius would be about 9680 kilometers (Earth is 6670 km). If our planet was 50% larger in diameter, we would not be able to venture into space, at least using rockets for transport. ”

First, the size doesn’t matter, except in sense that size relates to density and gravity. Earth is the highest density planet in our solar system:
5515 kg per cubic meter. Venus is 5243 kg per cubic meter. That apparently small difference [5%] would affect it, though the rotational speed of earth could be bigger factor. But the question is what affect does making a planet 50% larger do in terms density and ultimately
the surface gravity- ours being 9.8 m/s/s.
I mean if one simply added water- giving us extraordinary deep oceans- would reduce planetary density by a significant amount- reduce surface gravity. And make leaving Earth, easy.
Adding just iron on the other hand could increase gravity by many factors.
Earth is mostly iron and other heavy metals.
One could simply ask how many earths one would need to add to get a planet with 50% larger radius or diameter. And keep it really simple- don’t try figure the increase density due to added mass and compromise by keeping Earth density the same.
If added moons [our moon is 3340 kg per cubic meter] would different than adding Earths.
So this means we can just look at volumes of different size spheres.
And however many earths added, apply this factor to atmosphere and oceans, etc.
6670 km is 1.24 x 10^12 cubic km
9680 Km is 3.79 x 10^12 cubic km
So equal to adding 2 earth, 3 times the mass. Plus a bigger diameter
3010 km further from center of earth. so roughly if earth had 3 times mass and one was 3010 km above earth surface, the gravity would be?
Some math formula for it.
But Moon is 1/80th of Earth mass and it’s not 1/80th of gravity, it’s a 1/6th the gravity.
So just a guess it’s probably around 12 m/s/s rather than 9.8 m/s/s, and certainly not 10 gee world. And less than 2 gees.
Really not much difference than earth- humans could live on it and not feel anything in terms of a difference. Not as radical as living on Mars in terms of gravity difference. Not anything like returning from long stay in orbit. A human body could adapt to such an increase in gravity.

And chemical rocket can do delta-v of around 18 km/sec and deliver payload [with numerous rocket stages].
I would say, one could some of our existing rockets without significant changes and result delivering far less mass to orbit, but still able to some payload to orbit. And it’s possible to imagine getting into space could easier. Because of the poor payload to orbit, it require the use of assist launch system. So building some huge mothership
might seen as practical. Or other assisted launch technologies- such as Mag Lev launch system.
Before going to orbit, it would easier say say it’s impossible to go to orbit. And begin the road to orbit would far or expensive, but I think infrastructural investment could resulted lower launch cost then we have at the moment.
So I disagree that would not be possible to use chemical rockets, though would encourage assist launch systems- or the importance of infrastructure the spaceport would increase.

I will make another post for rest of it- which I have bigger disagreement about.

“Revolting against tyranny is a recurring human trait and perhaps we will figure some way to depose the rocket equation and venture away from our planet in a significant way. I am referring to exploration with continuous human presence with the first step like Antarctic-type bases (which support several thousand people) and eventually leading to colonization, a template comparable to the expansion of western civilization across the globe during the 17th and 18th centuries. To call yourself a sea-faring nation in that time meant that you could set sail on a variety of missions in a number of different types of vessels to a myriad of destinations whenever you wanted. We have a long way to go before anyone can claim to be a space-faring nation. ”
We could be there within 2 decades. Or half the time already wasted attempting it. So, not a long way.
Or without Apollo and effort to beat Soviets to the Moon, if instead taken a step by step process [which we were doing before the Soviet launched their satellite as propaganda stunt, cf, X-15 program]. We probably already would have had commercial operations on the Moon.

“The giant leap for mankind is not the first step on the Moon but attaining Earth orbit. If we want to break the tyranny of the rocket equation, new paradigms of operating and new technology will be needed. If we keep to our rockets, they must become as routine, safe, and affordable as airplanes. One of the most rudimentary and basic skills to master is to learn how to use raw materials from sources outside the Earth. Our nearest planetary neighbor, the Moon is close, useful, and interesting. Extracting and producing useful products from the raw materials of the Moon would relieve us from the need to drag everything required in space from the bottom of Earth’s deep gravity well, significantly altering the consequences of the rocket equation more in our favor. The discovery of some new physical principle could break the tyranny and allow Earth escape outside the governance of the rocket paradigm. ”

I don’t think rockets need to get to the level of market maturity of
airplanes. I don’t think it much challenge to learn how use raw materials
as it is a challenge to find them and quantify them- so the the commercial possibilities can judged. Such assessment will also inform how one does this, and one could expect improvement in how to do it best, by doing it.
A process humans are constantly doing in all fields, and will continue to do.
We should hope not for new physical principle, don’t need it, just move forward, and 50 years in the future some jackass can Monday quarterback, how should have been done, with information later gained.
I thought I had more to disagree about.
Main thing is idea of long way to get to point spacefaring.
I don’t we have to mine lunar water to be spacefaring. All we need is
fuel depots and therefore a market for rocket fuel in space, this gets to being spacefaring, then we do stuff with our ability to travel in space [like commercial mine lunar water and make rocket fuel] which can sold to the rocket fuel market. So this beginning we could see within a decade.

There is no doubt that access to a reliable, low-cost supply of energy (through fossil fuels) has helped mankind pull itself out of a harsh, cruel world to the affluence, quality of life and long life expectancy we now enjoy in the industrialized world.

Spending some time in parts of the world that have not yet seen this transformation makes one realize how fortunate we in the industrialized world really are.

If you have the chance, see a performance of Hayden’s oratorio, “The Seasons”

It is a praise of hard work and survival in a cruel world.

I saw it in German, but it is also performed in English.

Hayden tells of a harsh life as most people lived it in the 18thC, with humans toiling and surviving at the whim of Nature. It starts with the beginning of spring and goes through the four seasons, ending with winter, the “cruel tyrant” and season of death.

The music is beautiful – but I was most impressed with how life in that world is described – you get a glimpse into a world before the Industrial Revolution that was completely ruled by Nature.

And I, for one, came away very thankful that I am living today rather than back in those “pre-Industrial” days.

‘From the golden throats of modest
Song birds, thrush and nightingale,
Glorious song. From other more showy denizens
Of the bird world, chain-saw caxophony.
Cockatoo screech, cawing of crows in
Immemorial elms, kookaburra
Insane laughter at some joke
That’s obvious to him but
Not to us.

In the human world, sometimes likewise,
A homely wench who sings like an angel,
A golden girl with the voice of a crow.
In the world of bird song
You play the cards you get,
In the human world, less so.
The homely wench may invest in
Cosmetic treatments, the golden girl
Take singing lessons.

Studying air trapped inside Greenland ice cores researchers updated and corroborated their previous findings. The Earth has actually been cooling for thousands of years. Temperature changes during the 20th Century were just a tiny blip among many such blips over the years. The last 4000 years includes ups and downs — cooling trends followed by warming trends, etc. — and even a Little Ice Age lasting hundreds of years from before the time of Charles Dickens to when George Washington crossed the Delaware. But, that is what climate change is all about: it changes!

Abstract: [my emphasis on money shot] [also note gratuitous statement of anthropogenic global warming at bottom required before contrary data of any kind may be published]

ABSTRACT:
Greenland recently incurred record high temperatures and ice loss
by melting, adding to concerns that anthropogenic warming is
impacting the Greenland ice sheet and in turn accelerating global
sea-level rise. Yet, it remains imprecisely known for Greenland
how much warming is caused by increasing atmospheric greenhouse
gases versus natural variability. To address this need, we reconstruct
Greenland surface snow temperature variability over the past 4000
years at the GISP2 site (near the Summit of the Greenland ice sheet;
hereafter referred to as Greenland temperature) with a new method
that utilises argon and nitrogen isotopic ratios from occluded air
bubbles. The estimated average Greenland snow temperature over
the past 4000 years was -30.7°C with a standard deviation of 1.0°C
and exhibited a long-term decrease of roughly 1.5°C, which is
consistent with earlier studies. The current decadal average
surface temperature (2001–2010) at the GISP2 site is -29.9°C.
The record indicates that warmer temperatures were the norm
in the earlier part of the past 4000 years, including century-long
intervals nearly 1°C warmer than the present decade (2001-2010).
Therefore, we conclude that the current decadal mean temperature
in Greenland has not exceeded the envelope of natural variability
over the past 4000 years, a period that seems to include part of
the Holocene Thermal Maximum. Notwithstanding this conclusion,
climate models project that if anthropogenic greenhouse gas
emissions continue, the Greenland temperature would exceed
the natural variability of the past 4000 years sometime
before the year 2100.

Michael,
The long battle betwwen the open society of parliamentary
democracy and closed society top down authority never
really goes away. The Australian Green Party, promote a
set of ideological principles beyond environmentalism,
manifest in a coercive utopianism based on high levels of
state ownership and coercive regulatory bureaucracy,
Many of the Party’s leaders come from a background in
Marxist activism.

Gbaikie agree with yr concluding paragraph., ‘But probably
worse is lack of countries which are anti- totalitarianism or
those willing to champion individualism and human rights.’
Hayek observed a similar compacency in the West re creeping
inroads on freedom.

OPEC is an example of a price-fixing monopoly that has not been outlawed by international law (because international law has no teeth in such matters)

Another “monopoly” is the government. Fortunately there are checks and balances in most democratic nations that prevent the government from becoming too powerful at the expense of the general populace.

As far as “taking away the land” of others by conquest, this has pretty much died out over the past 60 years at least. In the past this was the normal way of life. And it wasn’t only the “bad guys” doing it: think Spanish, British or French Empire or the plight of the American Indians.

Under some regimes we had the government taking away the property of citizens, nationalizing industries, etc.

The situation isn’t perfect today by any means, but it sure as hell beats the system of 100-200 years ago.

Every sector of the economy telegraphs climate risks to its insurers. In turn, climate change stands as a stress test for insurance, the world’s largest industry, with U.S. $4.6 trillion in revenues, 7% of the global economy. Insurers first publicly voiced concern about human-induced climate change four decades ago.

Increasingly, multifaceted weather- and climate-related insurance losses involve property damage, business disruptions, health impacts, and legal claims against polluters. Worldwide, insured claims that were paid for weather catastrophes average $50 billion/ year (about 40% of total direct insured and uninsured costs); they have more than doubled each decade since the 1980s, adjusted for inflation. Insurers must also tackle risks emerging from society’s responses to climate change, including how structures are built and energy is produced.

Where there are risks, there are also opportunities. This article describes industry trends, activities, and promising avenues for future effort.Insurers are now supporting climate research, developing climate-responsive products and services, raising awareness of climate change, reducing in-house emissions, quantifying and disclosing climate risks, incorporating climate change into investment decisions, and engaging in public policy.

Well done, Evan Mills!

Summary (1) the market has spoken in regard to climate-change, and (2) it’s “STRIKE THREE, YER OUT!!!” for climate-change denialism!

Perhaps 2013’s great lesson-learned is that markets are largely immune to to the willful ignorance, illogical rationalization, and abusive demagoguery of climate-change denialism. And that’s good, eh?

mosh used a lot of words to say essentially nothing except that it will probably resume warming again.

Hey, I do not have a crystal ball (like Mosh apparently does), so I can’t make any predictions (although I would agree that it is logical that the slow warming trend we’ve seen as we’ve come out of the LIA will most likely resume).

But I DO know for absolutely sure (regardless of Mosh’s happy words) that it has stopped warming FOR NOW, with a measured “pause” of 12 to 15 years, depending on which record you look at.

”The CO2 content in the atmosphere is controlled together by both all CO2 emissions from sources to atmosphere and by all CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to sinks. Nowadays when the yearly total CO2 emissions are little over 200 GtC (CO2 as carbon) and the yearly human CO2 emissions are about 8 GtC, the influence of the human CO2 emissions on the CO2 content in atmosphere is approaching 4 % at the most. For instance, when the CO2 content in the atmosphere is 390 ppm, the manmade share of it is only about 16 ppm at the most; in the reports of IPCC the human share of recent CO2 content in atmosphere is assessed to be about 100 ppm without any proper evidence.”

– The CO2 content in atmosphere follows temperature changes and not vice versa. For instance during the recent three decades the CO2 increase in atmosphere has been dominated by natural warming of the sea surface areas on higher latitudes where sea surface sinks of CO2 are.

“Global warming happened in Medieval times with no CO2 emissions
By JohnThomas Didymus

A team of scientists have raised questions about current scientific theories about global warming. They showed there was a similar pattern of “global warming” during medieval times and that the planet cooled down after that leading to a “mini ice age.”
The group of scientists from the Syracuse University in New York state, led by geochemist Zunli Lu, found that the period known as the “Medieval Warm Period” occurred about 500 to 1,000 years ago and was not limited only to Europe as previously thought, but covered almost the entire world, including the Antarctica.
The significance of their work, as Daily Mail points out, is that the world has experienced global warming in the past, even in the absence of the current CO2 emissions that many scientists have blamed for the current pattern of global warming.”
……
[The Daily Mail article is no longer up.]

“But in their study recently published online in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, and titled “An Ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula,” Professor Lu and his colleagues argue that there is evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon. According to Lu, the clinching evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was global comes from study of the rare mineral ikaite which is formed in cold waters. According to The Register, Lu described ikaite as “an icy version of limestone. The crystals are only stable under cold conditions and actually melt at room temperature.”
Daily Mail reports that the researchers, in their study, showed that ikaite is a reliable way to study past conditions of the Earth’s climate. Studies of the rare mineral derived from sediment cores off the coast of Antarctica deposited over 2,000 years ago includes those deposited in the so-called “Little Ice Age” about 300 to 500 years ago. The Little Ice Age occurred after the Medieval Warm Period. Previous studies have documented both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age in Northern Europe but it was never established with certainty that the conditions extended beyond Northern Europe.
Lu and his colleagues explain that hydration water that holds the crystal structure of this rare mineral together can give clues about temperature levels at the time when the crystals were formed. According to a Syracuse University release: “Ikaite crystals incorporate ocean bottom water into their structure as they form. During cooling periods, when ice sheets are expanding, ocean bottom water accumulates heavy oxygen isotopes (oxygen 18). When glaciers melt, fresh water, enriched in light oxygen isotopes (oxygen 16), mixes with the bottom water. The scientists analyzed the ratio of the oxygen isotopes in the hydration water and in the calcium carbonate. They compared the results with climate conditions established in Northern Europe across a 2,000-year time frame. They found a direct correlation between the rise and fall of oxygen 18 in the crystals and the documented warming and cooling periods.”

In other words, the team looked at the amount of heavy oxygen isotopes found in the crystals and found that during cool periods there were high concentrations of the isotopes and during warm periods there were low concentrations of the isotopes. Using the evidence from levels of heavy oxygen isotopes in the crystals from the Antarctica, Lu and his colleagues were able to show that the Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon. ”

Requirement: “achieve 50% reduction of global GHG emissions from energy use by 2060 at no net reduction in GDP growth (compared with BAU) in each decade”.

That would be a ‘No Regrets’ policy and I believe it is achievable and realistic. The USA could lead so this could happen. I don’t think any other nation can lead this, so it can happen as fast and as effectively as it would happen if the USA led it.

A question to ponder as you read this paper is: How much worse off would we be without fossil fuels and how much better will the future be when we have access to cheap energy provided by fuels that are 20,000 to 2 million times more energy dense than fossil fuels?

Either way, we would be much worse off by any measure of success: affluence, quality of life, life expectancy, etc. if “fossil fuels had never existed” or “ceased to exist”.

As several studies by Indur Goklany have shown we are also harmed far less by extreme weather events than in earlier times.

How much of this is directly related to the access to a reliable, low-cost source of energy (based on fossil fuels) can be debated, but there is no question that it would not have occurred without this.

Nations like China and India are going through this transition now.

Some poorer nations are just starting to do so.

Fossil fuel reserves are limited. The latest estimate of the total inferred fossil fuel reserves of our planet (WEC 2010) tell us there are enough to last us 300+ years at present consumption rates (or ~150 years at projected future rates with BaU scenarios).

There is no question in my mind that something new and more economical will eventually replace fossil fuels, but the remaining resources will last us much longer if we follow Peter Lang’s advice to switch all new electrical power generation capacity to nuclear (which can compete today).

But what we do NOT need is a direct or indirect global carbon tax – that will achieve nothing positive, but will hurt those in the industrialized world (like you and me), and -most of all – those in the developing nations. A local carbon tax is even more stupid, as it will only make one location less competitive than another, but achieve nothing else.

We also do NOT need silly, expensive taxpayer-subsidized programs like wind farms or solar plants (that are in the wrong place and don’t work most of the time).

Let’s keep the “gumment” out of the energy sector (except for ensuring that safety and pollution abatement standards are met, that permit application procedures are handled quickly with a minimum of bureaucratic red tape and that selected basic research work is supported with taxpayer funding).

My reaction to some of the comments by Manaker (aka Max_CH) on January 2, 2013 at 6:42 pm

Max_CH says: Either way, we would be much worse off by any measure of success: affluence, quality of life, life expectancy, etc. if “fossil fuels had never existed” or “ceased to exist”

Max_OK replies: At best that’s an ethnocentric value judgement . At worst It’s shameful arrogant racism. How do you know the Swiss are happier than a tribe of Pygmies?
_________

Max_CH says: “As several studies by Indur Goklany have shown we are also harmed far less by extreme weather events than in earlier times.”

Max_OK replies: You might think that if you believe the tale about Noah and the flood. But there are a lot more of us to be harmed now.
____

Max_CH says: “But what we do NOT need is a direct or indirect global carbon tax – that will achieve nothing positive, but will hurt those in the industrialized world (like you and me), and -most of all – those in the developing nations.”

Max_OK replies: Yes, we do need one. It will slow China’s efforts to overtake America as the world’s leading nation in addition to combating global warming and air pollution. I know you don’t give a damn about that but I do.
______

Max_CH says: “We also do NOT need silly, expensive taxpayer-subsidized programs like wind farms or solar plants (that are in the wrong place and don’t work most of the time).

Let’s keep the “gumment” out of the energy sector … ”

Max_OK replies: I get it. You are an anti-government ideologue. Your ideology is handicaps your ability to think objectively.

Max, Yes, even if he (Michael) could look at the pictures (charts) and read the section headings and margin summaries, he’d probably learn something, unless – as I suspect – his mind is just locked shut.

Michael, fossil fuels are not living nature; the article doesn’t disclaim that fossil fuels are natural. Do you think that, somehow, human consumption of fossil fuels is not natural? Heck, everything in this universe is natural, including humans!

And it’s uniformly awful – from the strange effort to seperate organic hydrocarbons from ‘nature’, to the simply wrong attempt to tie in fossil fuel use to improvment in LE (it’s a secondary factor at best).

Michael, the point of the article seemed to me to be well summarised by Peter Lang. The use of fossil fuels is and has been inestimably beneficial to the advancement of humankind. It has, we all agree, given rise to pollution and and other issues that may well impact adversely on our climate and our environment, but the seriousness and extent of this remains moot.

Peter Lang also suggests that if the restrictions that have been placed on the use of nuclear technolgies could be removed, the progress of humankind could go even higher, and leaving a much better and cleaner environmental footprint for the enduring benefit of future generations of humans and all other lifeforms on this planet.

The Chinese will be more likely to make this happen sooner than the US. because the US has a fundamental problem with environmental caveats imposed through shoddy science and the misanthropic philosophical leanings of our leftist friends. With such friends, who needs enemies?

“While the work of Michael Mann and colleagues presents what appears to be compelling evidence of global temperature change, the criticisms of McIntyre and McKitrick, as well as those of other authors mentioned are indeed valid.”

The papers of Mann et al. in themselves are written in a confusing manner, making it difficult for the reader to discern the actual methodology and what uncertainty is actually associated with these reconstructions. Vague terms such as “moderate certainty” (Mann et al. 1999) give no guidance to the reader as to how such conclusions should be weighed.

“Centering the mean is a critical factor in using the principal component methodology properly. It is not clear that Mann and associates realized the error in their methodology at the time of publication. Because of the lack of full documentation of their data and computer code, we have not been able to reproduce their research.”

This below is a perfect example of government scientists with no clothes. And, this is a perfect example of the lack of competence and truthfulness we get from government in all levels in all socio-economic matters that society faces.

“[T]he proxies are centered on the mean of the period 1902-1995, rather than on the whole time period. This mean is, thus, actually decentered low, which will cause it to exhibit a larger variance, giving it preference for being selected as the first principal component. The net effect of this decentering using the proxy data in MBH98 and MBH99 is to produce a “hockey stick” shape. (Emphasis added @ Ibid.)

“… the fact that their paper fit some policy agendas has greatly enhanced their paper’s visibility. Specifically, global warming and its potentially negative consequences have been central concerns of both governments and individuals. The ‘hockey stick’ reconstruction of temperature graphic dramatically illustrated the global warming issue and was adopted by the IPCC and many governments as the poster graphic. The graphics’ prominence together with the fact that it is based on incorrect use of PCA puts Dr. Mann and his co-authors in a difficult face-saving position. We have been to Michael Mann’s University of Virginia website and downloaded the materials there. Unfortunately, we did not find adequate material to reproduce the MBH98 materials. We have been able to reproduce the results of McIntyre and McKitrick.” (Ibid.)

I find it remarkable how Nick Stokes makes an obviously deceptive choice in that blog post. Look at when hockey sticks in his figures can be upside down and when they cannot. Since orientation in those graphs is irrelevant, one should wonder why Stokes decided to leave upside down hockey sticks in his third (and fourth) figure. He arbitrarily increases the visual discrepancy by introducing a new, irrelevant feature (orientation) to the comparison.

If you modify the third figure in that post so all the hockey sticks share the same orientation, the apparent effect Stokes found would be much smaller. In other words, if you don’t randomly add in a factor which is irrelevant and misleading, the post is greatly weakened.

I actually pointed this out to Stokes some time back. He claimed he didn’t “get” what I was saying. Deceptiveness through incompetence?

Not only did Stokes not prove this, he didn’t even discuss it. The closest he comes to doing so is an offhand reference to another individual (Deep Climate) having done so. Following on this inability to read, willard makes a nonsensical remark:

Chewbacca substantiates without quotes and without links about an indirect discussion which has not appeared at Nick’s. This results in bragging. This makes no sense.

I have no idea how saying I told someone something once could amount to “bragging.” I’m not sure what a lack of quotations or links has to do with it either.

I thought me poem was kinda harsh but such is
nature, red in tooth and claw. Agree with you on
harsh winter, but ammeliorated fer humans by efficient
energy sources. This from David Bader on TS Eliot’s
The Wasteland.

After Snowmageddon and Frankenstorm shall we begin the task of assembling the body bags for the coming Mother of All Winters and erect pyres upon which to burn to the end of times the flesh of pestilence-ridden brains of Mann’s deniers?

Stanford University solar scientist Dr. Leif Svalgaard publicly denounces CO2 factorIn my view some, X, of the climate change is due to CO2, some, Y, is due to the Sun, and some, Z, is due to internal, random fluctuations. The only question is how much of each.
Perhaps it is X=10, Y=10, and Z=80 [they may even vary with time].

Agreed, where Z is due to the Earth’s internal (oceans to the core) fluctuations. These natural fluctuations (whatever mechanism/s) are reflected in the changes of the geomagnetic field and therefore easy to measure.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
SummaryCO2 ~10%
TSI ~10%
Earth’s internal ~ 80%

Adriano Mazzarella explains the paradox as a trade-off between representation and evaluation. Like J.R.R. Tolkein’s story of the Ents in the Lord of the Rings—Ents are as old as the mountains and remember everything. That is why Ents cannot tell a story any quicker than it actually took to observe. The availability of increased computing power allow for models of increasing complexity. So, we can more accurately represent the world than ever before. However, with more and more variables the degrees of freedom cannot be known and without that we cannot evaluate the accuracy of our representation of the world. The notion of statistical significance becomes meaningless. Only the actual outcome will be of any significance and for that we must wait for it. Just as we are not really using statistics if we actually know every outcome so too we are not actually using statistics to know what the temperature will be 50 years hence if we keep feeding in all of the data there is to represent the world as it continually unfolds along the way before us, as follows:

“There has been an explosive increase in the use of General Circulation Models (GCM) to forecast the increase in the Earth’s mean temperature caused by anthropogenic atmospheric CO2. This requires powerful computers that provide the solutions to a complex set of partial differential equations, strongly combined non-linearly, involving large quantities of input data… [and] the greatly increased speed and decreased cost of computer technology has made it possible to construct models of far greater complexity than most scientists imagined only a few years ago… However, the more complex a model, the harder it is to refute. So we face a paradox: the closer a model comes to a full representation of the complex atmosphere-ocean system, the harder it is to evaluate. There is a trade-off between representation and evaluation.”

“…To overcome such a paradox, a new methodological approach is here proposed: the scientist must have the courage to come out from inside the investigated phenomenon and investigate the same phenomenon from the outside.” (Ibid.)

Changes in many extreme weather and climate events have been observed, but the level of confidence in these changes varies widely depending on type of extreme and regions considered.

The leaked draft AR5 SPM Page 4 Lines 10-11

There is low confidence in observed large-scale trends in drought, due to lack of direct observations, dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice, and geographical inconsistencies in the trends

The leaked draft AR5 SPM Page 4 Lines 14-16

Tropical cyclone data provides low confidence that any reported long-term changes are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. This is a revision from previous IPCC Assessments Reports…

Are the commentators going to come into line with the consensus of scientific opinion, or will it be the other way round?

I say it won’t phase them, such is the strength of their belief. Remember the last part of the conclusion, “This means, however, that as with all hypotheses, our rejection of AGW is not absolute; it might be a false positive, and we cannot rule out the possibility that recent global warming has an anthropogenic footprint. However, this possibility is very small, and is not statistically significant at conventional levels.” In a linear no threshold world, statistical significance has no meaning, any “possibility” is their reality.

The bloated, pasty faced icon of globalclimatewarmingchange hysteria is about to pocket about 100 million dollars in evil oil money by selling his failed tv network for far more than it is worth to Al Jazeera.

That agreement is significant only if it turns expensive. The non-solutions to non-problems are irrelevant to the climate. It will blithely ignore them. The completely bogus “2°C target” is your first and quite sufficient clue.